Longarm and the Dead Man's Reward

LONGARM AND THE DEAD MAN’S REWARD [066-066-5.0]

By Tabor Evans

Synopsis:

Longarm’s on a wanted poster! One deputy marshal has already vanished while investigating the poster. So, Longarm heads for Santa Rosa, New Mexico, to find the missing marshal—and some answers. But when Longarm meets the dirt-licking snakes who put out the poster, he discovers it was all a trap … that he fell for. Now they’re going to make Longarm play their twisted game—and he better think fast if he wants to make it out of Santa Rosa alive. 221st novel in the “Longarm” series, 1997.

Jove Books New York Copyright (C) 1997 by Jove Publications, Inc.

All rights reserved.

This book may 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: 0-515-12069-3

Jove Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group, 200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016.

The Putnam Berkley World Wide Web site address is HTTP://WWW.BERKLEY.COM JOVE and the “J” design are trademarks belonging to Jove Publications, Inc.

A Jove Book published by arrangement with the author Printing history Jove edition May 1997

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

DON’T MISS THESE ALL-ACTION WESTERN SERIES FROM THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

THE GUNSMITH by J. R. Roberts Clint Adams was a legend among lawmen, outlaws, and ladies. They called him … the Gunsmith.

LONGARM by Tabor Evans The popular long-running series about U.S. Deputy Marshal Long—his life, his loves, his fight for justice.

SLOCUM by Jake Logan Today’s longest-running action Western. John Slocum rides a deadly trail of hot blood and cold steel.

Chapter 1

They were sitting in Billy Vail’s office on the second floor of the Federal Building in Denver. The chief marshal was sitting behind his desk, and for once he was looking his age. His sparse, white hair looked even whiter and his small delicate face looked tired. Billy Vail had never been a particularly tall man, but then he had never had to be. The air of authority he carried had always been enough to do the job. But now, he looked perplexed and worried. “Custis, I can’t make heads or tails out of it,” he said. “It’s the damnedest thing I’ve ever heard of before.”

Sitting across from him, lounging back in a chair, was Deputy Marshal Custis Long, known to most as Longarm because of his reputation for always running down his man. It was said that you could go from one ocean to the other, or find a hole and dig as deep as you could, or get on top of the highest mountain around, and you might, for a while, feel safe. But sooner or later, Longarm was going to show up. That long arm of the law would stretch out and pluck you in.

But right now he didn’t look the invincible paragon of the Marshal Service. He too looked baffled and bewildered, the same as Billy Vail. He also looked tired. He’d just come off a tough job in the Oklahoma Territory, where he’d been chasing a band of cattle and horse thieves who had been preying on the trail drivers who came through the territory. He had only been back one day, and he’d barely had a good night’s sleep in the whole two weeks he’d been gone. His face said he might be a man of forty, but that didn’t take into account the weather and the storms and the danger and the worry. His body, which was about six feet tall and about 190 pounds of hard muscle, tendon, and bones, came closer to saying thirty. But whatever his age, it needed a rest.

He had a cheroot burning between his fingers, and he took a drag and blew the smoke out. He said, “Billy, that’s the damnedest thing I’ve ever heard too. Are you sure you got it right?”

Billy Vail shook his head slowly. “Can’t be no mistake, Custis. There’s a bunch in New Mexico putting out wanted posters on you and offering ten thousand dollars dead or alive.”

Longarm just stared at him for a moment. “Don’t they know they’ve got this all backwards? That you put out wanted posters on the outlaws? You don’t put out wanted posters on lawmen?”

Billy Vail laughed in spite of himself. “I know it sounds crazy, but I’ve had several telegrams about it and one of the posters is on the way by mail. I don’t know what to tell you.”

“Who did you say was behind this?”

“I don’t have all the details,” said Billy. “It’s a family called Nelson. Frank and Asher and Claude. They’re either three brothers, cousins, or some such, and there may be a few others involved in it to boot. I don’t know where they got their money. I don’t know much about them except they don’t have a criminal record. As far as we know, they’re not wanted for anything. But they are sending men around to nail up posters with your picture on them offering ten thousand dollars for your carcass, dead or alive. Now, what do you think of that?” Billy Vail sat back and stared at Longarm in wonderment.

Longarm said, “Well, with what you’ve told me, I don’t know what to think of it. Am I supposed to have put some of their family in prison or killed some of their kin or done them some big harm? What is it that has caused them to single me out?”

Billy Vail shook his head slowly again. “I don’t know. That’s the mystery of the deal. The telegrams and the word that I’ve had don’t give any explanation, just that there’s posters out on you and that you’re a wanted man.”

“And where is this coming out of in New Mexico?”

“The Nelsons apparently live in the town of Santa Rosa. That’s a middling-size place halfway between Albuquerque and Tucumcari, about in the middle part of the state, the desert part.”

Longarm nodded. “I know of it but I can’t say that I’ve done a hell of a lot of business around there. In fact, I can’t think of anybody I’ve ever run to ground in that area. Of course, New Mexico has often been a hunting ground of mine. Doesn’t matter where I jump somebody, seems like they head for New Mexico—either there or Oklahoma Territory or Texas. They always head for bad ground, bad country, and bad folks. I wish sometimes they’d head for places a man could enjoy. Why don’t they ever head for San Francisco?”

Billy Vail said, “Well, all I know is that you had better go down there and find out what this is all about. I can’t have folks putting out wanted posters on my deputy marshals.”

Longarm sighed. “Billy, I don’t want to go anywhere right now. I need about a week of whiskey and women and clean sheets and hot baths. This is just going to have to wait.”

Billy Vail shook his head again. “Custis, I wish I could say otherwise, but I think this has got to be looked into right away. I can’t have them going around putting a price on the head of lawmen. For all I know, you could walk out of this office and somebody could shoot you in the back, load you in a wagon, cart you to Santa Rosa, and claim the ten thousand dollars. Your life’s in danger every place you are, every second you’re walking around until we get this matter settled.”

Longarm sat up straighter in his chair, though he didn’t really feel like it. He said, “Billy, have you wired the sheriff down there? Or the town Marshal?”

Billy Vail gave him a disgusted look. “Of course I have. That was the first thought that came to my mind.”

“Well, what did they say?”

Billy grimaced. “Never got an answer, not a word. It’s been three days and I still haven’t heard one word.”

“You’ve been sitting on this for three days and you haven’t mentioned this to me?” Longarm said.

“In case you’ve forgotten, you just got back yesterday.”

Longarm nodded. “Well, that’s true. You wired them both?”

Billy Vail held up his hand and ticked off his fingers. He said, “I wired the sheriff, I wired the mayor, I wired the town marshal, and I wired a bank down there just in case. I haven’t heard a word back.”

Longarm took off his hat and scratched his head. “Well, that’s the beatenest thing I’ve ever heard. Does it say who they’re to apply to for the reward money when they either have me a prisoner or a carcass?”

Billy Vail shrugged. “According to the information I’ve gotten so far, interested parties are to contact the Nelsons in Santa Rosa. It doesn’t give an address.”

Longarm said, “Do you reckon this might be some kind of joke, Billy?

Some kind of prank? I mean, ten thousand dollars is a hell of a lot of money. I know I’m worth considerably more than what ya’ll are paying me, but ten thousand dollars just for one deputy marshal?” He whistled and shook his head. “Either somebody has a lot of money to throw around, or else they’re playing a joke. Now, if this is a joke, Billy, and I go stumbling my way down to New Mexico—and I will be stumbling because I’m about half asleep right now—I’m not going to be in a very good frame of mind. There’s liable to be some bodies turned in, but they won’t be mine.”

Billy Vail put his hands on the top of his desk and looked directly at his deputy. “All right,” he said, “if you were me, what would you do? Would you just ignore it, pay it no attention? Just say … oh, well, never mind about that? And suppose I ignore it and suppose you get killed. Guess what my superiors might think about that! Put yourself in my boots for a minute.”

Longarm squirmed in his chair. He didn’t know quite what to think. “Billy, if they’re putting up those posters, that’s against the law. I don’t know what the legal phrase for it is, but they’re assisting in my murder. They’re paying somebody to kill me, and that’s against the law the last time I looked. So I don’t know who these fool people are, but all I’ve got to do is go down there and arrest them on the spot.”

Billy gave him a dry look. “Yeah, well, how are you going to prove they’re the ones who put up posters? Let’s say you find these Nelson brothers or cousins or whatever they are, and you have one of those posters in your hand, and you say, “Ya’ll are all under arrest for threatening to murder me,’ and they say, “We didn’t have nothing to do with that.’ What will you do then?”

Longarm frowned. “I’ll be damned if I know, except maybe get them together and lock them in a room until one of them decides to tell the truth. That’s all I can think of.”

“Custis, you’re a fair hand for bending the rules, but I don’t think even you would bend them that much. There’s something in this. I don’t know what it is, but it’s got me puzzled enough that I’ve got to send you down there to find out.”

“You know, Billy,” said Longarm, “it would seem to me that I’d be the last man to send down there. You’ve got about a dozen other deputies around here. Why don’t you send one of them down there to find out? There’s no price on their heads. Let them go down there and look things over and see what the deal is.”

Billy Vail nodded. “I’ve thought about that, Custis. I’ve thought it over and over. I’ve put myself in your place, and if it was me that was on the receiving end of this threat, I’d be the one wanting to look into it. I wouldn’t want to depend on the skill of any other man. If my life was being threatened like that, I’d want to get to the bottom of it just as quick as I could.”

Longarm said, “Damn it, Billy, these men would have to be fools. If I got killed, they’d have the Marshal Service all over them like bees on honey. They can’t be that crazy. There’s more to this than meets the eye, I can guarantee you that. I don’t think these men are trying to get me killed or captured. I think they’ve got some other reason.”

The chief marshal looked at him. “That’s just fine, Custis. But what if some gun-happy fool sees one of these posters and doesn’t know they don’t want you killed. What if he says, “Look here, here’s the famous Deputy Marshal Custis Longarm Long,’ and pops you one right between the shoulders? Is it going to make you feel a lot better when they tell him, “Oh, that was a big mistake, we didn’t really want this man shot?’”

Longarm sighed again and slid down in his chair. “I guess you’ve got a point. I can’t get away from it. I guess you really do have a point, but I’m damned if I feel like going back out into the field.”

Billy Vail leaned back in his chair. He said, “Well, why don’t you take twenty four hours and let’s think it over. Maybe we can get some more information in here.”

Longarm said, “Better than that, why don’t you send a deputy down there and let him get on the ground and get us some reliable information instead of us relying on some telegrams from heaven only knows who?”

Billy Vail grimaced. “That’s just it. I ain’t really got anybody to send.”

“There’s Ross Henderson. He ain’t doing a damned thing. He’s been laying around this station for the last month, it seems like. You ain’t put him to work yet. When is he going to do some work where he don’t have to back up to the pay table?”

“Oh, Ross is just a kid, Longarm. Hell, I can’t send him out like that, not on a job like this.”

Longarm said, “Billy, what do you think I was? The first job you sent me out on, I wasn’t nothing but a kid.”

Billy Vail leaned forward. “You were never a kid,” he said. Then he fixed Longarm with a gimlet eye. “And by the way, you’re making it sound like me sending you out when you were a kid, well, that makes it sound like I’m a good deal older than you, and we both know there ain’t that many years separating us.”

Longarm laughed loud and long. “Oh, I hope the Good Lord doesn’t strike you down dead for that one,” he said. “Billy, you can go to Hell for lying as well as for stealing. You know, if headquarters ever finds out how old you really are, you’ll be drawing two pensions as soon as they retire you.”

Billy Vail got red in the face. “Now don’t you be spreading none of that kind of talk. You and I both know there ain’t no truth to that.”

Longarm kept on laughing. “Billy, Billy, I’ve been here I don’t know how many years and you sure as hell ain’t got no younger. You looked like old saddle leather the first day I started working here. You looked like a mule that had already put in his career’s work and was ready to be turned out to pasture, and I don’t know how many years have passed since then. Lord have mercy.”

Billy Vail was still glaring. He said, “Well, that kind of talk ain’t going to get you your way. You can see that, can’t you, mister?”

“Look, Billy. Henderson doesn’t have to go down there and blunder into anything. He can just go down there and mealy-mouth and pussy-foot around and get a line on what’s actually going on and then get word back up here. That’ll give me some time to rest. Billy, I ain’t kidding. I didn’t sleep in a bed for ten days. I think the best bed I had the whole time just didn’t have any rocks under it, and that was as good as it got. And I know I didn’t have a hot meal the whole time unless it was warmed up by gunfire.”

Billy Vail gave him a sour look. “My heart is bleeding for you, Custis. You can’t believe how bad I feel.”

Longarm said, “Now, there’s no need to get sarcastic, Marshal Vail. There’s no call for that. What do you say about sending Ross Henderson down there? He needs the work and he’s got to get his feet wet, Billy. I know you think he’s a little slow and a little backwards, but he seems bright enough to me.”

“You’ve never heard me say I thought Ross was slow or backwards. He’s a sworn deputy United States marshal. We ain’t got none, with the exception of yourself, that’s slow or backwards.”

“Well, anyway, I wouldn’t want to see the kid go out on a job like this if he couldn’t handle it. But all you got to do is tell him to be careful.”

Billy threw his hands up in disgust. “All right, all right,” he said. “You’ve got to have a certain amount of time to whore around town and gulp down whiskey. I guess you’ve got it coming, though I’ll be damned if I know of anything else you do. When do you ever work?”

Longarm fixed him with a hard eye. “Don’t you come that way on me. You take a calendar and you mark off how many days I had off last year. I’ve got so damned much leave time coming, if I put it all together, I could retire right now.”

“You don’t have to get huffy about it, Custis. All right, I’ll send Ross down there to see if we can’t get a line on this.”

Longarm stood up. “I still think it’s a joke,” he said. “I still can’t believe that anybody in their right mind would be inviting this kind of trouble. If they can be found to collect a reward, they can be found to be arrested. It doesn’t make any sense, Billy. If you wanted me dead or captured or hidden off somewhere, would you go to advertising it and cause me to be on my guard? Hell, no. You’d slip up on my blind side, take me unaware.”

Billy Vail tilted back in his chair. “I hate to say it, Longarm, but it’s a well known fact that you ain’t got a blind side and you’re pretty hard to slip up on. That’s the only reason I can think of that you’re still alive. No, if this is not a trick, and I don’t think it is, it’s smart. It’s too damned smart to be a joke. There’s just enough people crazy enough to have a try at you—from ambush, naturally. I don’t think they’re very interested in bringing you in alive, but I do think they are interested in putting a hole through you. Now as to the rest of it, I’ve got no idea.”

Longarm put on his hat. “Well,” he said. “I’m going over to the Elite Cafe and have myself a good lunch, and I’m going back to the hotel and get some sleep, and then I’m going carousing tonight. I don’t know when I’m coming in.”

Billy Vail gave him a disgusted look. “Play, play, play. That’s all you know how to do. I just hope this poster doesn’t put an end to your playing.”

Longarm shook his head and walked to the door, saying, “Billy, you’re getting so old, you’re starting to get dotty. I’m telling you, your brain is disengaging itself from your mouth. You’d better get them working together again.”

After lunch, he went to the barbershop and had a long luxurious bath and a shave, and then had his hair trimmed. After that, he went back to his boardinghouse and gratefully climbed between the clean sheets. He intended to sleep until about eight o’clock, and then he was going to call upon Pauline, a lady friend of his who had a dressmaking shop. She was a very well-proportioned thirty-year-old widow who was just as ladylike as a china doll until you got the clothes off her and got her into a bed. Then she turned into a wildcat. Longarm was pretty sure he’d ridden some broncs that hadn’t bucked as hard as she did. He could swear that after some nights with her, he had black and blue marks all over him. She was a very nice lady, very independent, who wanted what he wanted without any ties or connections or commitments. It was a good arrangement. She liked being single and she liked sex, and he felt the same way.

He slept solidly and peacefully, but unfortunately, too long. When he opened his eyes and looked at his watch, he was shocked to see that it was ten o’clock. He had missed his visit with Pauline, or at least the first part of it. He was still of a mind to try to make the important part of it happen. He dressed as quickly as he could, just the thought of her making his mouth salivate and getting him aroused. When he was dressed and groomed, he hurried out of his boardinghouse and walked the several blocks to her small house behind Denver’s business district.

As he neared, he could see that her house was dark. Pauline had obviously gone to bed. He considered going up and knocking on the door, but he didn’t think that was quite the right approach with Pauline. Someone meeting her in her shop would think what a nice little lady she was, very proper, very prim. But he knew better.

He walked quietly around the side of the house to the bedroom where he knew she slept. There was no screen on the window, and he was able to get his pocket knife in under the sill and raise the window slightly. After that, he worked his fingers in and lifted the window open quietly and easily. It wasn’t a particularly big window and it wasn’t too high up, so he was able to boost himself onto its sill and then quietly let himself down to the floor. His eyes had adjusted to the dark and he could see the bed. He could see a solitary small figure sleeping with her back to him. Making no noise, he slipped off his boots and unbuckled his gunbelt, being careful not to let the derringer he carried in the big concave buckle slip out and fall to the floor. He put the gunbelt down and then shucked off his shirt and his jeans, not bothering with his socks. He didn’t wear any underwear, so he was ready as soon as he had his pants off.

Moving easily and gracefully, and seeming almost not to disturb the bed, he slipped in under the top sheet and eased across the mattress until he could feel her. He had expected that she would be wearing a gown, but he was surprised as he very carefully put out one finger to find a bare back. For a second, it scared him. It frightened him to think he might have come into the wrong bedroom and had the wrong woman.

But then, a distinct and clear voice said, “Where have you been, Marshal Long?”

It startled him so bad, he jumped a foot. “Pauline, damn it! You nearly scared me to death!”

She turned to him. She said, “Who do you think you’re trying to fool, Marshal? You’re not as smart as you think you are. I saw you coming up the street. I knew you’d show up tonight. You’ve probably got some foolish excuse for being late, but I knew you’d show up.”

He was about to make some lame excuse, but she fastened her mouth to his and flung her arms around his neck and pulled him to her, leaching onto him as if she could get inside his skin.

For a time, they kissed and caressed, but then she took one of his big thighs in between hers and began to slide up and down on it. It was a stimulation that was peculiar to her. He’d never had any other woman to do it. As she slid up and down, her breath quickened and she began to pull at his hair and kiss him even more savagely.

He knew she was getting very nearly ready when she began to bite his shoulders. He flipped her over on her back and spread her legs, using his hands just under her knees, forcing her vagina to point almost straight toward the ceiling. From this position, he plunged himself into her. The penetration brought a near scream into his ear, and she wrapped her legs tightly around him and her arms around his neck and began pulsating in rhythm with his rocking motion. They met each time with a wet smacking sound, the sound of passion turned loose. The sound of two bodies trying to drain all the pleasure from each other. It lasted longer than it should have, until they simultaneously exploded. The climax was such that they were both tossed about on the bed like small boats in the middle of a tempest.

And then, finally, it came to an end. Longarm disengaged himself and lay beside her. He stared at the ceiling for a moment, then said, “Whoa, Nellie. Pauline, you’re nearly more than my two hands can hold. I may have to bring some help next time.”

She snuggled up next to him. “When are you going to tell me why you were late? I had a very nice dinner fixed.”

“Well, let’s get up and eat it. The truth of the matter is that I took a nap this afternoon because I’ve been plumb worn out from two weeks on the trail, and I just flat overslept. Nothing more, nothing less.”

She gave him a light slap. “I would imagine that you’ve been trying to make up for lost time. I know how many girlfriends you’ve got in Denver. I’d bet I’m about third on the list for the day.”

He turned back toward her and kissed her softly on the corner of the mouth. “I can promise you this, Pauline. If I did have two other girlfriends I was going to visit today, you’d certainly be the last on the list because I wouldn’t be any good to either one of them after being with you.”

Pauline said, “Are you really hungry? Have you not eaten?”

“I told you I lay down about four o’clock and just kept on sleeping. I haven’t had a bite of supper.”

She slipped out of bed and lit a kerosene lantern by her bedside. As she picked up her silk lounging robe, he had just enough time to admire her trim shapely body with her small firm breasts and her long black shiny hair, which went so well with the jet black pubic hair that grew above where her legs joined. She was a very pretty woman. She was also a very jealous woman, as he had reason to know.

She didn’t want a man full-time. She didn’t want a steady beau, nor did she want a husband. But when you were courting her, you had better damned well just be courting her. You’d better never, ever show up with the scent of another woman on your body. Longarm had on one occasion, and it had taken him six months to get back in her good graces. Now, he was very careful. She might jokingly say something about him having come from two other women, but she knew that he wouldn’t dare do such a thing. It was for that reason that she had accepted his excuse without any fuss.

She said, “Are you going to get dressed? Why don’t you just put on your pants? Maybe after supper we can have a little dessert.”

Longarm said, “That sounds like a mighty good idea to me. Besides, it’s a warm night. I don’t care to get too dressed up. What do we have for supper?”

Pauline said, “I baked a chicken. It might be dry by now, but I’ve got plenty of gravy. And besides, what do you care anyway? You could probably eat saddle leather if you had to. I’ve got some boiled potatoes and some green beans, and I’ve got a chocolate cake for dessert.”

Longarm was sitting on the side of the bed, pulling on his pants. “You know that ain’t what I want for dessert.”

She turned at the door and gave him a smile. “That’s just the first dessert.”

Pauline had the food laid out and a place fixed for him by the time he got to the table. She had also set out a bottle of the Maryland whiskey that he preferred. She said, “You left this over here the last time you came calling.”

He sat down at the table. “I’m surprised you didn’t waste it on some of your other boyfriends.”

Longarm was sitting at the head of the table, and she sat down to his right and rested her elbow on the table and her head in her hand. “Where did you get those scratches all over you?” she asked.

He was about to take a bite of chicken, and he paused with his mouth open and looked at her. “Oh, I’ve been wrestling with a wildcat,” he said. “Where else would I get them?” He put the chicken in his mouth and began to eat.

She said, “I guess I’d better doctor those before they get dirt in them or something.”

Longarm said, “It would probably be best to just wait. I would imagine that I’m about to gather up some more.”

Pauline laughed. “I don’t know what comes over me. I just get so carried away.”

Longarm shook his head. “I ain’t complaining. I ain’t complaining about this chicken either. It’s not too dry. How come you’re not eating?”

“I ate earlier. I figured you were tied up with some sort of marshal’s business, so I got that out of the way. I knew you’d show up sooner or later.”

He gave her a smile. “Pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you?”

“I know you’ve been gone for a good long while, and I know, most of the time, you get pretty hungry while out on the trail.”

He had seen her the evening before, but only to stop by to arrange his visit tonight. There had been no chance to tell her of his chase and capture of the horse and cattle thieves. Now, he gave her a short, condensed version of the hard trip.

“I swear, Pauline, that there were times that I’d have even swapped you for some of this chicken, and that’s saying a whole bunch.” He reached out, poured himself a half glass of whiskey, and downed part of it. “And there were a few times when I would have swapped this here whiskey for water.”

“Now I am amazed,” she said. “You must have had a hell of a time.”

The way she was sitting, her silk lounging robe gaping open at the top, he could see her almost perfect breasts, small and yet seemingly plump, sharp-pointed with tips of raspberry and full rosettes of a darkish hue. For a moment, he could not take his eyes from the sight, and he could feel a stirring coming from in his pants. She noticed his eyes, and gave a quick laugh and then straightened up.

“Oh, no, not yet,” she said. “I ain’t ready for you to get all roused up. I want your best effort.”

“I had a good rest this afternoon and I’ve got plenty stored up.”

“I hope you’re going to be in town for a while now. You come and go so fast, sometimes I think I just made you UP.”

He frowned. “I hope I’m going to be here for a little while, but I’ve got the damnedest situation going on that you’ve ever heard.”

“What?”

He began to tell her about the wanted posters that were being put out on his head around New Mexico. He finished with: “Now ain’t that the damnedest thing you’ve ever heard? Wanted posters on a lawman?”

Pauline looked dismayed. “Custis, that’s scary. Somebody really doesn’t like you. Ten thousand dollars? Don’t you go near that place, somebody’ll shoot you in the back.”

“It’s a mystery to me and it’s a mystery that I intend to get to the bottom of. I’ve talked Billy Vail into sending a young deputy down there to try and get some information, but sooner or later I’m going to have to go down there myself and settle the matter. I don’t much care to be walking around with a price on my head.”

“Honey, this is awful. Listen, what are you going to do? Isn’t that illegal or something? How can they advertise to have someone killed?

Especially a lawman?”

Longarm said, “Well, I’m not a lawyer or any of that, but as near as I can make it out, putting up a notice like that makes you an accessory to murder or a co-conspirator. I know one thing. It’s got to be illegal. It’s damned sure uncomfortable for me.” Pauline shook her head, looking worried. “You must have made somebody awfully mad. Did you kill somebody named Nelson or put them in prison or something?”

Longarm shook his head. “Me and Billy Vail’s been over and over that. The best I can figure out, I don’t even know anybody by the name of Nelson.”

“Well, you poor baby. I … I don’t know what to think about something like this, but it makes me nervous.” She suddenly got up, went over to a drawer in the kitchen cabinet, and came out with a clean cloth. She came back to the table, took the bottle of whiskey, and soaked the cloth. After that, she began daubing at the scratches on his neck and back.

Longarm let out a yowl. “Damn it, woman. Quit wasting that whiskey like that, and quit wasting it on hurting me. That stuff ain’t supposed to make you hurt. It’s supposed to make you feel better.”

Pauline said, “Well, those were bothering me. I’ll try and be more gentle next time.”

“Why don’t we just trim your nails, like you would a horse’s hoof? Maybe we can even cut your fangs down a little bit.”

She leaned down and kissed him on the neck, and then whispered in his ear what she was going to do to him in a very few minutes.

He turned around so that their lips met. With their mouths barely touching, he said, “You can’t do that. I don’t think that’s possible.”

“You watch me. I’m going to drain you as dry as an old dead log.”

He said, “You’re not big enough to hold all what I’ve got.”

She said, “Don’t bet me.”

When Longarm had finished eating, she gave him a piece of chocolate cake and allowed him to drink another glass of whiskey before they went back to the bedroom. The second time was even more spectacular than the first because of the slow, progressively intense nature of their lovemaking. As it built, wrung by wrung, sometimes Longarm could barely control himself, waiting for her, holding up for her, bringing her all the way to the top of the ladder.

When it was finally over, they were both spent. She went into the kitchen with him while he smoked a cheroot and had a drink. Then she began yawning. “Honey,” she said, “I’ve got to go to bed. You are going to sleep here tonight, aren’t you?”

Longarm said, “Yeah, I reckon, but you go on to bed. I want to sit here and think a spell.”

She stood up, kissed him softly on the mouth, and said, “If I get up before you do, I’ll try not to wake you. I’ll leave the coffee on.”

He bade her good night, and then poured himself out some more whiskey and lit another cheroot. His mind turned back to the problem down in New Mexico. He wasn’t frightened by the situation, but mainly perplexed. He was also not so certain that it was smart to send a young deputy such as Ross Henderson down into what might well turn out to be a very complicated situation. It could be that Henderson would muddy the waters and make the final resolution more difficult. It could be that he would give up more information than he got.

As Longarm sat there smoking and drinking, he came halfway to the conclusion that it wasn’t such a good idea. He thought that he would take himself over to Billy Vail’s office the next day and have a discussion with his boss about the matter.

After a while, he put out his cheroot, drank the last of his whiskey, and then slipped into bed beside the warm, soft smooth body of Miss Pauline.

Chapter 2

Longarm got to Billy Vail’s office shortly after lunch the next day. He had not rushed because he felt there was no need for hurry. Knowing Billy, Longarm had expected him to act with all due deliberation before he sent young Ross Henderson to New Mexico, but he was greatly surprised to find that the chief marshal had sent the young deputy on his way the night before. Vail said, “Yeah, I had him on that eight o’clock southbound train yesterday evening. I barely gave him time to pack.”

Longarm sat down with a pained look on his face. He said, “What the hell was the hurry, Billy? Couldn’t it have waited?”

Vail said, “What the hell was there to wait for? You said you needed some time to rest.”

Longarm frowned. “Well, I suppose it’s all right. I don’t know. I just don’t much like the idea of sending a man as inexperienced as Henderson is into an unknown situation like that.”

“That sure as hell ain’t the way you were talking yesterday.”

“Yesterday, Billy, I was just back from a two-week hunt. I was give out, give in, and damned near ready to give up. Now I’ve had some whiskey and some pussy and some food and some sleep.”

Billy Vail said, “Which do you count as food?”

Longarm gave him a sour look. “I don’t need any of your smart mouth this morning. What were your instructions to Henderson?”

The chief marshal shrugged. “Just to look around, ask a few questions, mainly find out who the Nelsons are and what their interest is in you and if they have all that money to pay for your sorry head. Just kind of get a line on it, if it’s real or not real, and find out why I haven’t had any returns on my telegrams to the sheriff and the town marshal and such.”

Longarm said, “Why didn’t you just tell him to go down there and hang a sign on his back that says, “Shoot Me?’ Hell, Billy, they’re going to connect the one to the other. If those people you wired didn’t wire you back, there’s a damned good reason why they didn’t wire you back, and that’s because they’re in with the Nelsons. You should have told him to go down there and hang around and keep his ears open in the saloons.”

“Well, if you’re so damned smart, how come you didn’t give him his orders?”

“Because you’re the chief marshal, damn it. Have you forgotten everything you ever learned in the field?”

Billy Vail’s face flushed slightly. “No, I haven’t forgotten everything I ever learned in the field, but I might could arrange for you to learn a whole lot about being behind a desk. How would you like that?”

Longarm said with a little heat in his voice, “You’re always threatening me with that, Billy. Just go ahead and threaten. The day you get me behind a desk is the day I’ll be dead. I’ll quit first and you know it.”

Billy Vail waved a pacifying hand at him. “All right. I understand how you feel. I’m a little worried about Henderson myself. You got any ideas?”

Longarm sat back in his chair. “I did some studying about it late last night and then some more this morning. I’ve got a friend in Tucumcari, a man by the name of Lee Gray. He’s kind of a part-time gunslinger, part-time cattle rancher, part-time gambler, and part-time whatever he needs to be. He’s in my debt.”

“What did you do? Help him cross a herd of stolen cattle over the Rio Grande?”

Longarm said, “Yeah, for you—your cattle. No, I kept him from having a little more air inside of him than a man needs to have. Anyway, what I was thinking was that if he’s in Tucumcari, I could get him to take a quick train up to Santa Rosa and kind of keep an eye on Ross. He’s an old experienced hand, a man about forty. He knows how to listen and keep his mouth shut. I’m going to get a wire off to him and see if we can’t sort of back this thing up a little bit. He can watch Ross’s back. If Lee wasn’t such a damned disreputable character, he’d have made a damned good lawman.”

“What are you doing sitting here talking to me about it?”

“Well, you are the chief marshal and it was my understanding that I was supposed to get your permission before I up and acted on my own.”

Billy Vail threw up his hand and said, “Hah! That’s a new one! That’s a first! If I could tote up the times you’ve asked my permission to do something and hold them in one hand, and then tote up the times you’ve gone ahead on your own without paying me no never mind and put them in the other hand, guess which hand would pull me slam on over on my back?”

Longarm said, “Now, Billy, you better watch out. Somebody’s going to accuse you of exaggeration one of these days.”

“Get on out of here. Get on down to the telegraph station and wire your friend. Is he going to cost us anything?”

Longarm was half out of his chair. “Why, you cheap old bastard. No, he won’t cost you anything. Like I’ve said, he owes me and he’ll be glad to do it.”

Billy Vail said, “Well, it didn’t have anything to do with the money. I just didn’t want to have to see you filling out a bunch of paperwork on his expenses.”

Longarm rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. “You beat everything, Billy. You just beat everything.”

He walked slowly down to the train depot, where a telegraph office was located. Once up on the station platform, he watched as the eastbound two o’clock came chuffing into the station, blowing steam and clanging its bell. Trains were all right as far as he was concerned, but a little train riding went a long way with him. A man didn’t have any sense of choice. He had to go wherever the rails were headed. It wasn’t like being out on the prairie on horseback, where he could cut north or west or east or in whatever direction he wanted to go. Longarm didn’t like anything that dictated a course for him.

He walked into the telegrapher’s office and went to the desk where they kept the blanks. There was a stub of a pencil there and he picked it up, wet the end, and then thought a minute before he began to write. He addressed it to Lee Gray, in care of the Desert Hotel and Saloon, Tucumcari, New Mexico. In the body of the telegram, he wrote:

HAVE SENT A YOUNG MARSHAL NAMED ROSS HENDERSON TO SANTA ROSA STOP HIS JOB IS TO INVESTIGATE WANTED POSTERS BEING PUT OUT ON MY HEAD STOP REWARD OFFERED STOP VERY CONFUSING STOP HENDERSON VERY INEXPERIENCED DEPUTY MARSHAL STOP WOULD GREATLY APPRECIATE YOU GOING TO SANTA ROSA AND KEEPING AN EYE ON HIM STOP WOULD APPRECIATE YOU GATHERING ALL INFORMATION YOU CAN ABOUT REWARD PLACED ON ME STOP APPRECIATE YOU LETTING ME KNOW IMMEDIATELY WHEN YOU RECEIVE THIS WIRE STOP WILL WAIT TO HEAR FROM YOU STOP

He signed it, and then turned it in to the telegrapher and charged it to the United States Government. After that, Longarm walked thoughtfully back to his boardinghouse, not quite certain if things were going the way they should be. Now that he was rested, he was sorry and anxious about not going to Santa Rosa himself. But he felt sure that if the telegram reached Lee Gray, his friend would take matters in hand and not only protect young Henderson, but gather enough information that would tell Longarm how best to act.

He spent that afternoon in one of his favorite saloons playing small-stakes poker, having a few drinks, and talking with men who were as friendly as anyone was to a U.S. deputy marshal. When you put on the badge, you did more than take on a duty; you also cut yourself off from the normal day-to-day business of living. People looked at you differently and they treated you differently and they were always slightly uncertain about what they did and said around you. But he had known before he’d become a marshal that it was a price he was willing to pay. No one had ever come right out and asked him why he had chosen to become a marshal. If they had, he wouldn’t have been able to answer them. If he had asked himself the same question, he wouldn’t have had a ready answer. It had nothing to do with wearing a badge or carrying a gun or the authority of his office. It had far more to do with the ability to set matters straight, to make things right. He would never admit it, but Longarm was a man who believed in the fairness and justice of life and every man’s right to that fairness and justice. He didn’t know where that feeling came from, and he didn’t have to know. All he knew was that he was happy being a marshal. The pay was lousy, the hours were horrible, and the work was dangerous. Other than that, it was as easy as sliding down a greased board.

He was back at his boardinghouse a little before seven, and was gratified to see a telegram waiting for him on the hall table. He ripped it open eagerly. It was from Lee Gray.

It said:

RECEIVED YOUR WIRE STOP AM STARTING FOR SANTA ROSA IN THE MORNING STOP WILL WIRE YOU WHAT I FIND OUT STOP HAVE SEEN POSTERS OF YOU STOP FIRST TIME I EVER KNEW ANYBODY WANTED YOU STOP THE PICTURE DON’T DO YOU JUSTICE STOP

Longarm went to his room feeling somewhat easier. He hadn’t known if Lee Gray had been in town and reachable by telegram or not. Now, at least he knew that some help for young Henderson was on the way. All Longarm could do now was wait. He went on into his room, took off his shirt and boots, and lay down on the bed and stared at the ceiling. He had a very difficult decision to make.

His landlady’s daughter, a young lady of some twenty one or twenty two years of age and of considerable beauty, had been giving him every indication that she would like to spend some time in his room, and not making up the bed or dusting. Her name was Lucy. He had done nothing to either encourage her or discourage her, but he had an idea that this very night could well be the night she’d like to spend some time with him. He knew that her mother, his landlady, was going to be out late on her charitable duties of visiting the sick and taking parcels of food around to those who weren’t able to help themselves. He figured Miss Lucy would be ready to join him as soon as her mother left the house, which she normally did at about eight o’clock. He could then slip down, he figured. That would give them two or three hours to have a good time.

Of course, there was Pauline, but he didn’t believe he could take another night of her—not so soon, anyway. But then there was also a very lucious thirty-year-old widow named Gloria who worked at the bank. He had sampled her wares several times before. That afternoon, he had stopped in at the bank and briefly asked her if she would be home during the evening. She’d offered to fix him dinner, but he had known he would be playing poker and he didn’t want to eat until late, so he’d asked her if he could just simply drop by. She had fluttered her eyes and said, “Oh, my. Yes.”

So, that was his dilemma. Should it be Lucy or should it be Gloria? He had a feeling that he would be better off with an experienced hand like Gloria rather than a young woman like Lucy, who he guessed was fairly inexperienced. He liked them with a few miles under the saddle. You didn’t have to spend so much time guiding and directing them. They knew what to do. They knew how to hit a lope or a gallop without hitting the spurs. They knew which trail to take if there came a fork in the road. They knew the country.

He was sitting on the side of the bed in just his pants with a glass of whiskey in his hand when there suddenly came a light tap at his door. He said, “Come in.”

All of a sudden, the door flew open and then was closed just as quickly. It was Lucy Bodenheimer, his landlady’s daughter. She leaned back against the door, her breasts heaving, her voice high and excited. She said, “Oh, Marshal Long, you don’t know how long I’ve dreamed of this. I am absolutely hypnotized by your eyes. I seen you watching me when I serve you at the dinner table. You can’t know what this means to me.”

Longarm just sat there stunned, his mouth half open.

She said, “I knew this moment would come. I knew it was destiny.” She rapidly unbuttoned the buttons of her blouse, and before he could even speak, she had stripped it off and thrown it to the floor. Next came the buttons of her skirt, and it too fell to the floor.

Longarm said, “Lucy, now wait just a-“

But before he could finish, she had taken the long chemise she was wearing and pulled it over her head.

In a breathless, excited voice she said, “Oh, my gosh, I can’t stand it anymore.” She suddenly rushed toward the bed and flung herself headlong down its length. Longarm barely had time to stand up to avoid her.

He said, “Lucy, what in hell are you doing?”

She had turned on her back and lay there, her legs spread wide, her eyes staring at the ceiling. She said, “Take me. Take me. Take me now, Marshal. Please.”

Longarm did not relish the thought of being caught with Mrs. Bodenheimer’s daughter, but yet here was this vuluptuous, luscious-looking young woman, lying naked in his bed, with him just wearing a pair of Levi’s that were rapidly getting too small to hold him. In one swift motion, he kicked them off and crawled up on the bed. He hovered over her on his hands and knees. She had her eyes shut tight.

He said, “Lucy, are you sure you know what you are doing?”

She said, “Oh, please hurry. I can’t wait.”

He lowered himself down to her and guided his penis into her young vagina. She was dry and she was tight, and for a second he had fears that she might be a virgin. But then he thought to himself that everyone was a virgin at one time or another and he had already come this far.

To his surprise, as soon as he penetrated her half an inch, her vagina came alive and moist and welcoming. As he thrust into her, her legs came up around and clutched him and pulled him into her. Her arms drew his head down to her, and she began to lavish kisses all over his face. She had wonderfully shaped large breasts and the kind of fine-boned smallish figure that Longarm liked so well.

It was over all too soon. She brought him quickly to a high state of excitement, and she did not react to any of his attempts to slow her down. Before he knew it, he had fallen off the mountain and had exploded into her. The instant it happened, she grew still and quiet. She had been making little moaning, keening sounds, but now she grew silent. He thought it was from disappointment. He had only given her a three-or-four-minute ride, but he’d never really had a chance for more.

He rolled off her to the side away from the door, trying to think of something consoling to say. It obviously wasn’t necessary because in an instant, she had bounced to her feet and was putting on her clothes.

Lucy said, her eyes sparkling, “Oh, I knew it would be grand. I knew it would be so wonderful with a grown man, not like with those boys. Oh, that was everything I expected, Marshal Long. I am so happy, so fulfilled. I feel like a woman.”

Longarm’s mouth was open and his mind was dazed, but before he could reply, she had dressed and was out the door, closing it behind her. He sat up slowly, shaking his head. He didn’t know what had happened but it had felt good, at least to him.

He rose out of bed and began to dress. It seemed the decision had been made for him. He had plenty of time to drop by and take supper with Miss Gloria, the bank teller.

As he looked in the mirror to see if he needed another shave, he noticed blood on his left ear. He touched it gingerly. It was sore. Like a dim memory rising out of a fog, he remembered that during the moments when Lucy had gone wild, his ear had somehow ended up in her mouth. She had apparently tried to chew it off. He wet a rag, wiped the blood off, and then dried it. He said out loud, “Damned if I ain’t getting hurt worse back here at home than I did on the trail. I’m beginning to believe those outlaws that I’m always chasing are a good deal safer than these women.”

He got over to Gloria’s a little before eight. She had held supper for him. The way she was dressed told him what was to be expected. She was wearing a light linen frock that was clearly the only clothing on her body. She served him a dinner of good roast beef along with mashed potatoes and corn, with apple cobbler for dessert. He had brought his own whiskey since he did not see her that often. They sat a while after they had eaten, with her drinking coffee and him sipping his Maryland whiskey.

Gloria was a handsome woman of about thirty who had been widowed for several years after her husband fell off a windmill. She’d come in from the ranch and gone to work in Denver, until she had moved up to the respectable job of teller at one of the smaller banks.

He could tell she was anxious. He was anxious too, but not as anxious as he had been earlier that night. He dawdled another ten minutes, and then got up out of his chair, crossed to her, and kissed her long and meaningfully while he ran his hand down the blouse of her dress and cupped her ample breast in his hand. She got up silently and led him into the bedroom.

Gloria liked to tease. He got undressed and lay down on the bed while she slowly undressed. Her style was to parade around naked, keeping his gaze on her, and then to suddenly rush in for a few strategically placed kisses. After that, she would withdraw for some more teasing. Her theory, she said, was that the longer you looked at a meal, the more you wanted it. Longarm had always wanted to say that while you’re looking, it’s cooling off.

Finally, she came to him, and they mingled their bodies and their appendages and their fluids, until finally they started toward the rising sensation of passion. Gloria climaxed very physically, bucking and straining against him, beating him on the back with her hard little fists, and drumming her heels on the backs of his legs. He didn’t think about it at the time, but later, as he sat on the side of the bed, he felt the bruises that he realized would still be there the next day. He didn’t know how many more women he could stand in the short period of time he had before he left town.

He declined her offer to spend the night, begging off with the excuse that he was still writing up his report from his last trip and that it was due the next day. She gave him a long and lingering kiss at the door and said that she was disappointed that he had been so easily satisfied. Since he couldn’t very well tell her the truth, that he had been emptying his bucket in other wells, he said he was just completely worn out from his time away from Denver.

He said, “You let me get in one or two nights’ good sleep and we’ll roll and pitch and scuffle all night long.”

Longarm left her not without some regret, and walked back to his boardinghouse. A wise man had once told him that you never got back those chances at a woman you let pass you by, but he was of the opinion that many more chances in the near future would just about finish him off.

He did very little the next morning except have breakfast at the Elite Cafe and then wander in and out of a few saloons, finally ending up back at his boardinghouse for lunch. It was curious and almost laughable to watch Lucy’s face as she served him. She averted her eyes in the most obvious way, and the faint blush she wore should have been a giveaway to a blind man. Fortunately, her mother stayed in the kitchen most of the time and none of the other boarders, half of whom were women, seemed to take any notice. For his part, Longarm played it straight, being polite to the young lady and treating her as if nothing had ever happened between them. He wondered, however, if there would be a repetition of the night before. It still dazed him to think of what had happened and how fast it had happened, Besides that, his ear was still sore.

In mid-afternoon, he walked down to the Federal Building and went up to Billy Vail’s office to see if there was any news. A telegram had arrived from Ross Henderson, and Billy held it with a slight frown.

Billy Vail said, “Here’s what he’s got to say. See what you think.” He cleared his throat and read aloud:

HAVE ARRIVED IN SANTA ROSA OKAY STOP HAVE ASKED A FEW QUESTIONS AND HAVE DETERMINED THAT THERE IS A FAMILY OF NELSONS STAYING HERE STOP THEY APPARENTLY LIVE ON A RANCH SOME FIFTEEN MILES OUT OF TOWN STOP DON’T KNOW MUCH ABOUT THEM NOR DOES ANYBODY ELSE EXCEPT THEY APPEAR TO BE WEALTHY AND DON’T WELCOME STRANGERS STOP ALSO THEY ARE SOME KIND OF FOREIGNERS MAYBE YANKEES MAYBE FROM FURTHER AWAY THAN THAT STOP HAVEN’T HAD MUCH COOPERATION FROM THE LOCALS STOP IN FACT I DON’T EVEN MUCH TRUST THE LOCAL SHERIFF OR THE TOWN MARSHAL STOP I WILL KEEP NOSING AROUND AND ASKING QUESTIONS AND GIVE YOU FURTHER REPORTS STOP

Billy looked up. “I may have left out a few stops but that’s the gist of it. What do you think?”

Longarm was alarmed. “Billy, he put in the telegram that he didn’t trust the local law. Now you and I both know that the odds are that the telegrapher he gave that message to is going to tell the sheriff and the town marshal. That was a damn fool stunt to pull.”

Chapter 3

Billy looked up from the yellow telegram and said, “By damned, you’re right, Longarm. When do you reckon that friend of yours, Lee Gray, is going to get there?”

Longarm shook his head. “He ought to be there sometime today if he moved on out. But I’m a little concerned about Ross. That’s kind of a stupid telegram to be sending from Santa Rosa. He ought to have sense enough to take the train up the line and send it from some point where the telegrapher wasn’t likely to be under the thumb of the local law.”

Billy Vail rubbed his smooth pink jaw. “I’m afraid you’re right. I’m beginning to regret sending that young man. What do you think? Maybe you’d better take off right now.”

“Let’s give it another day until we hear from Lee Gray,” Longarm said. “Let’s get a better line on what’s going on. I just can’t believe that Ross was stupid enough to say all that in an open telegram.”

Billy Vail, looking worried, said, “Hell, Custis. He’s just a kid. What do you expect?”

Longarm turned level eyes on his boss. “If he keeps making mistakes like that, that’s all he’s ever going to be—a kid. He ain’t going to get no older.”

“We don’t necessarily know that these folks are dangerous.”

“And we don’t necessarily know that they ain’t, do we?”

Billy Vail rubbed his jaw again. He was obviously agitated. “I swear. This is one of the most puzzling messes I’ve ever seen. What in the world have you done to get yourself into this? A wanted poster put out on a deputy marshal, and naturally it had to be on you. Oh, I didn’t tell you, by the way. The poster says they prefer you alive.”

Longarm said, “No, you forgot to mention that little point.”

“Well, I was getting so much mixed information that it kind of got by me. I thought it said dead or alive, but it’s preferred alive, or something like that. I think there’s a lesser amount for you dead.”

Longarm said sarcastically, “Well, then I’m not going to worry about it. I’ll just stay here in this office and then go home with you and you can protect me. Surely nobody can take me alive with you around.”

Billy Vail gave him a disgusted look. “You are undoubtedly the most insubordinate deputy marshal in the entire service. One of these days, I’m going to force the papers through and get you declared a chief marshal just so you’ll have to go through what I have to go through putting up with YOU.”

“The day ain’t coming, Billy, when they put a saddle on a desk and seat me behind it,” Longarm said evenly.

“There’s all kinds of things I’d rather be doing than having your job.”

“Yeah, you might have to think a little bit, and that would wear you plumb out.”

“Listen,” Longarm said. “Squabbling among ourselves ain’t going to do any good. I can’t think of a thing to do myself except wait. I’m as worried as you are and I feel like a damned fool that I didn’t go down there and tend to it myself. Now that you’ve told me I’m preferred alive, I feel some what better. This might just be a prank. This might be somebody’s idea of a funny joke, Billy.”

“Well, prank or not, it’s damned sure against some law, and whoever did it is going to be prosecuted just as hard as we can prosecute them.”

Longarm nodded. It was obvious that nothing was to be gained by them worrying together or blaming each other for having sent the young deputy into unknown territory. So Longarm took his leave shortly thereafter, and walked over to one of his favorite saloons to see if he couldn’t find a poker game. He was now even more puzzled by what Billy had just said, that the posters wanted him alive. Of course, no one would know what the posters really said until one arrived and they could look at it. Any fool would realize that it would be a much harder trick to take a deputy United States marshal and deliver him alive, rather than bushwhack him, sling him over a horse, and take him to whoever wanted to gloat over the body. It just plain didn’t make any sense. It was a dangerous pursuit trying to grab up a deputy marshal and deliver him anywhere if he didn’t want to go. And of course, the question after that was: What were you going to do with him once you had him captured?

You certainly couldn’t put him in a regular jail or a prison. Had some lunatic devised some kind of jail cell or prison where he wanted to put Longarm for the purpose of feeding him and watching him and seeing how a deputy marshal acted? Like an animal in a zoo? That was just plain insane. Unfortunately, Longarm had been in the law business long enough to know that insanity was not so rare a commodity among the criminal classes. Still, it was a puzzle.

He finally found a poker game to his liking—dollar ante, pot limit. He sat down and took out his roll of money. “Gentlemen,” he said to the other players. “I hope your wallets are longer than your dicks because I plan to skin you.”

One of the players said, “I wouldn’t know about that, Longarm. I try to keep mine worn down, but then, I don’t guess you’d understand what I mean.”

Longarm gave him a wicked grin, thinking about the last two nights. He said, “Just shuffle and deal and get ready to donate.”

He finished playing just in time to make it back to the boardinghouse in time for supper. His mind was full and distracted with the problem of the Nelsons and of Lee Gray, but mostly with young Ross Henderson. He was more and more convinced that the young deputy should not have been sent on such a complicated mission. Normally, you broke a deputy in by pairing him with an older, more experience hand and then gradually letting him take his head and move out on his own as he was able. Longarm was so concerned that he even sidestepped a coy invitation from Lucy that night right after supper. She passed him in the hall, paused, and wondered with a tight smile on her face if he wouldn’t need his bedclothes changed a little later. He said that no, they were fine, that he had a great deal of work to do, and that he’d probably just be staying in and working.

Her face fell and she looked disappointed and hurt. It didn’t hit him until he was halfway to his room that he had just turned down another piece of pie. He remembered the old advice that the more pie you turned down, the less you were likely to get in the future.

But he could not stop worrying about the situation. He resolved that if he didn’t hear something positive in the next day, he was going to be on a train heading for Santa Rosa to get to the bottom of the matter.

He slept badly that night despite several drinks that should have calmed him. He was restless and uneasy and eager to do something rather than just lie in a bed while work was to be done. He got up early the next morning and went out for breakfast rather than having it at the boardinghouse. As it was, he just had biscuits, gravy, and coffee.

After that, he went over to the Federal Building to Billy Vail’s office. Billy was there, but there was no news, so Longarm walked up and down the halls and visited with the various other deputies of the Marshal Service, some of them men who had retired from the field and now worked behind desks, performing the necessary paperwork that he hated so much. They all knew about the case and they were all ready to discuss it, but no one could add a spark of new information or new thinking to the problem.

At noon, he and Billy Vail went over to the Elite Cafe and had lunch together. They each had a big T-bone steak with fried potatoes and fried eggs on the side. Longarm joked about the steaks being nearly bigger than Billy, which certainly would make Billy’s round little belly even bigger.

Billy Vail had always been sensitive about his size, and he had gotten more so in his later years. Now his ears got pink and he said, “Longarm, you sonofabitch. I wish you were as old as I am. I’d whip your ass right out there in the middle of the street. I bet you can’t fight worth a lick with your fist. I might be short but I still pack a hell of a punch.”

Longarm gave him a horse laugh. “The only punch you ever had, Billy, came out of a bowl that some ladies had made up for a party. Quit telling me about that shit.”

“Well, just for those kind of remarks to your superior, you’ll damned well pick up the bill for this lunch. I don’t normally eat in such a place as this, what with my salary and all.”

“Your salary? You mean your salary and what you can steal! If I had a hand like yours, I’d arrest it. My Lord, you spill more money than I make in a month!”

They were only joshing with each other to keep from talking about what was worrying them the most. They both felt an uneasy sense of guilt that they’d sent a young man into a dangerous situation despite the fact that they were experienced and should have known better.

When lunch was over, Billy Vail went back to his office, and Longarm wandered down the street to a saloon he knew had an early poker game. The stakes were smaller than he liked to play, but it was something to do to pass the time while he waited for news. The hell of it was, they should have had a deputy stationed somewhere near that part of the country. Normally, a deputy marshal was kept in the southern reaches of New Mexico, even though most of the deputies worked out of the Denver office. But the man who had been there had just retired and returned to his birthplace in Georgia. The poster that was being sent was coming from a friend of that deputy marshal who still lived in Albuquerque. Longarm was beginning to wonder how long it took to get a package from Albuquerque to Denver. It seemed like a week had passed.

And then there was the matter of Lee Gray and further word from him. Worse was the fact that they hadn’t heard from Ross Henderson since yesterday. He had been told to communicate daily.

Longarm did such a bad job of keeping his mind on the game that he managed to lose $60 to players who were vastly inferior to him and who had far less money. He normally won at poker, not with luck but with money management. Usually the best player with the most money would win in the long run. But he was playing in a fifty-cent, two-dollar game, and somehow still managed to lose a considerable sum. He finally left at about three in the afternoon and went back over to Billy’s office.

The poster had come. Billy had unfolded it and it was lying on his desk. He turned it around as Longarm came in. It was a normal-looking legal poster that could have been put out by any law enforcement agency. It was about eighteen inches by twelve inches, and there was a drawing of Longarm in the upper third. Below that it read:

REWARD

CUSTIS “LONGARM” LONG

$10, 000 ALIVE

$1,000 DEAD

CONTACT THE NELSONS

SANTA ROSA, NEW MEXICO

Billy Vail said, “Well, what do you make of that?”

Longarm studied it. “There’s no printer’s mark on it, so I’m not going to be able to track them down that way. They obviously didn’t have a photograph of me and it’s a bad drawing.”

“Yeah, but it looks a little bit like you, enough that somebody must have seen you or a photograph of you to work from.”

Longarm said, “They make it clear enough that they want me alive. Ten thousand alive, one thousand dead. That’s not much of a choice, is it?”

“But what in the hell can it mean? What are they going to do with you alive? Paint you up and put you in a circus? And that business about contacting the Nelsons in Santa Rosa. Hell, I’ve sent off five telegrams and I haven’t gotten one word back about the Nelsons. I don’t understand it, Longarm.”

Longarm looked at his boss. “Billy, do you think it’s bait?”

The chief marshal nodded slowly. “That’s all I can figure it is. Somebody is trying to draw you to New Mexico. I know it would get my interest if my name was where yours is, and they even used your nickname, which of course, being as famous as you are, is widely known.”

“But there’s that one thousand dollars dead. That worries me. You know, that’s still a lot of money. It just might be that somebody would be fool enough to shoot me in the back and then trundle me all the way to New Mexico and try to collect that money.”

Billy Vail shook his head. “No, I hate to hand you any bouquets, Longarm, but there ain’t too many people fool enough to try and collect that one thousand dollars. A few of them might try and get a lariat over you and try and take you down there alive, but they’d be damned fools also. No, I don’t think this reward poster is intended to have anybody fetch you to Santa Rosa. I think this is intended to get you down there on your own.”

Longarm sat down in the chair across from the desk and rubbed his jaw. “Damn it, Billy. Why the hell did we send Henderson down there?”

Billy Vail shook his head sadly. “I know. I feel worse about it than you do. I’m the one that did it.”

“Yeah, but I’m the one that said I didn’t want to go and I persuaded you. You knew I was tired and you took that into account.”

“It ain’t my job to be taking things like that into account. I should have never sent a young deputy like that. Damn, I feel awful about this.”

Longarm said, “Well, if we don’t get some word, I’m leaving tomorrow.”

“That might be a little too quick, Custis. Maybe you ought to let things cool down a little.”

Longarm gave him a direct look. “It might be Ross Henderson cooling down.”

“Don’t say things like that.”

Longarm got up. “I’m going back over to my boardinghouse. This whole matter is frazzling me out. It’s making me more nervous than a cat in a room full of rocking chairs.”

He saw the yellow envelope as soon as he walked into the front hall of his boardinghouse. He rushed to it and grabbed it up, tearing it open eagerly. It was from Lee Gray, addressed to C. L. It said:

YOUR FRIEND HAS DISAPPEARED STOP NOT A HIDE NOR HAIR OF HIM STOP NO ONE CLAIMS TO KNOW ANYTHING OF HIS ARRIVAL OR DEPARTURE STOP HE DID SPEND ONE NIGHT AT WHIT’E”S HOTEL STOP THEY NEVER SAW HIM AGAIN STOP HAD HIS HORSE RESHOD AT RYAN’S SMITHY STOP DID NOT SAY HIS DESTINATION STOP AM STAYING AT WHITE’S HOTEL STOP WIRE ME SHOULD I STAY OR LEAVE

It was signed L. G.

It was a much more informative and less revealing telegram than Ross Henderson had sent. It showed the mark of an experienced man in unknown territory. It was also very disturbing news to Longarm. With the telegram in hand, he turned immediately and hurried back to the government building and up to Billy Vail’s office. Billy was just putting on his coat to go home. Longarm slapped the telegram down on the desk in front of him. He said, “Take a look at that. We’ve got to figure out something and quick.”

Billy took a moment to read the telegram, and then he looked up. His eyes were troubled. “Custis,” he said, “I’m afraid Deputy Henderson may have gotten himself into some trouble. I reckon you know what you gotta do.”

Longarm said, “I reckon I ought to get headed that way as quick as I can. I wonder if there is a train heading that way tonight.”

Billy Vail shook his head. “No, there is no evening westbound train tonight. The best you could do is to run south to Hobbs and then cut over, and that would cost more time. Your best bet would be to take the ten o’clock train in the morning.” Billy Vail, like many in the Marshal Service, was almost an encyclopedia of train schedules.

Longarm said, “I’m going to ask Lee Gray to stay in Santa Rosa until I get there. Do I have your authority to deputize him and put him on the payroll?”

Billy Vail nodded. “Yes, you can make him a Special Deputy at six dollars per day, him to furnish his horse and cartridges.”

“All right, and unless you hear from Henderson before that train pulls out in the morning, you can just consider me gone.”

Billy Vail scratched his thinning hair. “Longarm, if I told a man to be careful every time I sent him off on a job, all I’d do would be to spend my time telling men to be careful. But I’ll tell you, this time I really feel like you ought to be careful.”

Longarm picked up the telegram and the wanted poster. “I’m going to take this poster with me. I’ll be staying at White’s Hotel, so you can reach me there by telegram, but for heaven’s sake, don’t wire the sheriff or the marshal or any other of the law down there. I don’t even want them to know I’m there. I’m going to put the badge in my shirt pocket and button it, and I’ll just be some old boy riding through.”

“Good luck to you. I hope this works out. I’ll damned sure sleep a lot better.”

Longarm turned and walked out the door. Over his shoulder, he gave a half wave and said, “Adios, you old sonofabitch. I’ll see you a lot sooner than you want.”

Billy Vail yelled after him, “That’s for sure! Never would be too soon!”

Longarm chuckled as he went down the stairs, but by the time he hit the street he wasn’t laughing anymore. He felt in his bones that a very unusual job was before him. The first order of business on his mind was to get a telegram off to Lee Gray about when he should expect Longarm to arrive in Santa Rosa. But before that, he had to get some information from the ticket agent about the trip.

He walked to the train depot again even though it was a good long walk. It was still easier than getting out his horse.

The passenger agent said the best route out of Denver would be to run south through Colorado Springs and down through Pueblo, Colorado, to Raton, New Mexico, where he would have to change trains and pick up a line out of Raton down to Santa Fe. There, he would have to change lines again to catch the train that ran east-west between Albuquerque and Tucumcari. He would make his last switch in Tucumcari, which was only fifty or sixty miles from Santa Rosa. It wasn’t that far in miles, but it appeared to be about a fourteen-hour trip with a lot of switching in between. After he had bought his ticket using a government voucher, he went around to the telegraph office and wrote out his message on a blank to Lee Gray.

It said:

ARRIVING EARLY AM DAY AFTER TOMORROW STOP TWO OR THREE AM STOP MAKE SURE I SEE YOU BUT MAKE NO SIGN OF RECOGNITION STOP I WILL GO TO WHITE’S HOTEL STOP FOLLOW ME STOP WILL FIND THE CHANCE TO TALK DURING THE NIGHT STOP

He signed it C. L. and gave it to the telegrapher with instructions to put it on the government’s bill.

After that, there wasn’t anything he could do except get as much sleep as he could and get ready for a hard trip. One thing he hated was that because of the number of train changes, it would be too difficult to take his own horse. He didn’t like that part of it because one thing a man in his profession needed between his legs was an animal he could depend on. More than once, his skin had been saved by the speed or endurance of a good horse. If you didn’t take your own, then you were just drawing potluck on what you could find to borrow or buy or rent. But there was just a chance that Lee might have some connections and be able to help him out in that area. With nothing else in mind and nothing else to do, he turned his footsteps toward the boardinghouse, worried about the young man, feeling guilty that he hadn’t gone himself, and blaming himself in advance for what might happen.

Chapter 4

It was a long and boring train trip. The first part of it, through the mountains of Colorado, wasn’t so bad. At least there was something to look at out the window. It didn’t seem like there was ever much to look at inside a passenger coach, mostly drummers or cattlemen or grandmothers who were taking the chair cars. Longarm never understood why pretty young women never rode the trains much, or at least the trains he rode. It would have been a pleasant way to have passed the time, he thought, to have had a pretty young woman to talk to, even though it might never have gone any further. Longarm was willing to admit that there were other things you could do with women, and talking was one of them.

Unfortunately, all of the lines he would be taking were locals. They didn’t go far enough to include a parlor car where a man might find a poker game. As a result, you could either stare out the window or drink whiskey or smoke cheroots, or you could do all three. Longarm had never believed in thinking much about the situation that lay ahead. He found that when you did that, you got set ideas in your mind that were always different from what you saw when you got there. It was a dangerous habit and practice to preplan your reactions in an unknown situation.

He had told Billy Vail he was going to button his marshal’s badge into his pocket and leave it there. That wasn’t necessarily the truth. He might be better off putting it on. He would just have to see when he got there.

As he rolled around, swaying with the motion of the train and listening to the clickity-click as the wheels passed over the rail joints, he reckoned that Lee Gray was delighted at the prospect of meeting him at the rail depot at two or three o’clock in the morning. He would probably want to carry Longarm’s valise for him. His valise was stored in the overhead rack above his head. He had three extra shirts, an extra pair of Levi’s, and his other Colt .44 revolver to match the one on his hip. Strapped to the valise was his lever-action .44-caliber rifle, and inside were several boxes of .44-caliber ammunition that fit both of his revolvers and his rifle. He also had four bottles of Maryland whiskey, all he could carry. If the job stretched out to any length, he’d soon be out of it and would be forced to drink the local rotgut, which he hated.

As well as he could remember, Santa Rosa wasn’t exactly a thriving city. Unless it had grown considerably, it was probably still a cattle town of no more than a thousand inhabitants, with about twelve saloons to every church and four hardware stores for every grocery store. It wasn’t a place a man would choose to spend a vacation.

He could visualize White’s Hotel in his mind because he had stayed in a hundred places just like it. The hotel would be a rickety, weather-beaten two-story affair with beds that sagged in the middle and doors that wouldn’t stay closed, and certainly wouldn’t stay locked. It would have windows that wouldn’t open and floorboards that creaked and lamps and lanterns that never seemed to have enough kerosene in them. If it hadn’t been early summer, the place would have been as cold as the North Pole with the wind blowing eighty miles an hour. As it was, it would probably still be blowing eighty miles an hour, but instead of snow, it would be blowing dust.

Longarm let his mind play lightly with this family called Nelson, if there even was such a family. He wondered what kind of people they could be and what they had against him.

But then, he cut that thinking off short. It wasn’t going to do any good to speculate, nor was it going to do any good to guess. He never had. You got the facts in hand and you handled them. That was the only way it worked.

Mrs. Bodenheimer had made him up a sack of food for the road. She had put in some sliced ham, some sliced roast beef, and some big chunks of bread along with some cheese. Fortunately, he had managed to avoid Lucy as he was making his getaway, as he thought of it. He was well supplied with food and there was water on the train and he was well supplied with whiskey, so he guessed he would make it. If only he didn’t have to make so many changes.

The train rolled on. Day turned into evening and evening became night. Sometime around ten, Longarm changed trains at Raton, New Mexico, and started the run up to Santa Fe. He supposed the mountains of northern New Mexico would have been worth seeing, but it was too black out the train’s windows to see anything except his own reflection. Now and then, he snatched a quick nap. Mostly, he just did what he did on all train trips—endured it. He was a man whose seat was meant for the saddle of a horse, not for the seat of a railroad coach.

Close to midnight, he made the switch in Santa Fe for the short haul down to Albuquerque, where he caught the train heading east that would take him into Santa Rosa. At that hour, he was the only passenger in the coach besides one fat drummer with his sample case on his lap, a derby hat on his head, and a cigar in his mouth. The conductor came through, calling out Longarm’s stop, and he got up, stretching, tired and sore from the long spell of sitting. He got his valise down, and was halfway off the train by the time it pulled into the platform at Santa Rosa.

It was a dark night with very little moon. Longarm walked across the planks of the passenger platform toward the streets of the town. It was, as he had guessed, not much more than a village. It looked to have one main street, with several others branching off. As he went down the steps from the platform to the street level, he glanced across and saw, in the shadows of a building, a tall angular man who looked vaguely familiar. Longarm headed toward the center of town, and saw the man slouch along, paralleling him. It was Lee Gray. There was no mistaking the walk. Longarm had always said that Lee walked like a man whose joints were half asleep. Most people thought that Lee was a touch on the slow side, until they realized how fast he could move when they tried something. Gray gave the appearance of being more than just a little relaxed. In actual fact, he stayed on a hair trigger most of the time.

Longarm didn’t glance his way. He walked down the middle of the dark street, heading for the center of town, where he expected to find White’s Hotel without too much trouble.

He turned right at the next corner, which seemed to be the main street. Gray was just ahead of him. Lee had stopped in the shadow at the corner and stood, leaning against the support post of a porch roof.

As Longarm passed, Gray said in a low voice, “White’s is in the middle of the next block. You’ll pass the jail on the way.”

Longarm acted like he hadn’t heard, and kept on walking. He knew that Lee would let him get a good lead before he came wandering into the hotel. It would seem like there was no connection between the two men.

Longarm stuck to the street rather than walking on the boardwalk as it was broken up. Some stores were fronted by it and some weren’t, so a man would be constantly going up and down as he made his way along the fronts of the stores. He saw the glow in the first block, about midway up, in the window of an office. As he passed, he saw the lettering that said “Sheriff & Tax Collector.” It gave the name of the county, but Longarm couldn’t read it. He saw the vague image of a man humped over at a desk. He passed on by. He wouldn’t be ready for the sheriff until he had some rest and had talked matters out with Gray.

He was fifty yards into the second block when he stopped dead in his tracks. The false-fronted, weather-beaten, wooden stores suddenly gave way to a huge, block-like, three-story stucco building that had a porch in front and big double wooden and glass doors. It rivaled anything that Longarm had seen in St. Louis or San Francisco or Denver. It looked as out of place as the Queen of England would at a washerwomens’ convention. Across the top in neat letters, it said “White’s Hotel.” He didn’t know if it was named that way because the building was blindingly white, or if White was the name of the party who owned it. He didn’t much care. It looked like comfort to him, and that was all he was interested in. He only hoped they had a room. Surely they did. In such a small town, a hotel like that would have plenty of rooms.

He went through the big double doors and into the well-lighted lobby. The floor was marble, and his boots rang hollowly on it in the big well-appointed room. Off to one side, he could see a dining room with white starched tablecloths. There was a young man on duty at the desk, looking sharp and pressed, even at that ungodly hour. Longarm went up and asked for a room.

The young man said, “Yes, sir. Will that be with a bath or without?”

Longarm wasn’t sure he was in the right country. He said, “You got rooms with baths?”

“Yes, sir, we do. We have a reservoir on top of the hotel and we have a method of heating it. Some of our rooms have a built-in bathtub so you can have a bath right there in your room. I must tell you, sir, that the in-room bath is a dollar per day extra.”

“Just how much are these rooms?”

“Sir, your room will cost you three dollars a night on the second floor or four dollars a night on the first floor.”

Longarm said, “Well, I’ll have one on the second floor. But just for the sake of curiosity, I noticed that you’ve got three floors. What about that third floor? Would those rooms be two dollars?”

The young man gave him a thin smile. “All of the rooms on the top floor are reserved, sir, for special guests of the management.”

Longarm was signing the register. He said, “I see. Well, how do you know I’m not a special guest of the management?”

The young man behind the desk gave Longarm a pointed look. He said, “Are you?”

Longarm laughed. “Son, I’m so tired, I don’t even feel like trying to trick around with you. No, I don’t even know the management here.” He signed the register “C. Long” and deliberately bluffed the last name.

The young desk clerk spun the book around, looked, took a key out of the pigeonholes, and then asked, “How long will you be with us, Mr. Lang?”

Longarm smiled. He shrugged his shoulders and said, “Oh, two or three days. Do you want me to pay in advance?”

“No, that is not necessary. Do you have any luggage, sir?”

“Just my valise here, son. By the way, are there any saloons open in town?”

The young man shook his head. “No, sir. The saloons around here all shut down at one o’clock. The Indians, you understand?”

“Yeah,” Longarm said. “The Indians. What do they do? Start scalping people?”

“They get drunk, sir.”

“Oh,” Longarm said. He looked at the young man. “So that’s what’s been going on. Every time I wake up, I feel like I’ve been scalped. So it’s the Indians doing the drinking that’s doing the scalping, is it? Well, we’ll have to put a stop to that.”

Longarm picked up his valise and picked up the key, stalling, hoping that Lee Gray would come through the doors before he left. He saw no sign of the man and he couldn’t think of any reason to tarry. But just then, as he started across the lobby, Longarm saw the big doors open and saw Lee Gray come plodding through like he was out for a Sunday stroll and the fact that it was almost three o’clock in the morning was of no matter.

Longarm was almost to the top of the stairs, and called out to the desk clerk. He held up the key that had a little wooden room number attached to it. He said, “I can’t make this out. Is this 205 or 206?”

The desk clerk said, “205, sir.”

Longarm let his glance graze off Lee Gray, then nodded at the clerk, said “Thanks,” and went on up the stairs. He walked down the hall until he found his room and opened the door. He was amazed to find such a place in Santa Rosa. The room was big, it was clean, it had a good-sized bed in it that looked almost new, and sure enough there was a copper bathtub next to the wall with spigots sticking out just like in a regular hotel in Kansas City or New Orleans or any other big town you could name. He was determined, if nothing else, to get some of the train dirt off him before the night was over.

But first, he wanted a few quick words with Lee Gray. He opened his satchel, took out a bottle of whiskey, and then set it on the table, which already contained a pitcher of water, a bowl, and four glasses. He sat down, lit a cheroot, and waited. He had left the door slightly ajar so that Gray wouldn’t have to knock.

As Longarm sat there, his attention was drawn to the back of the door and to what he had first thought was either a picture or the rules of the house. Then it began to look very familiar. He suddenly got up, walked across the room, and within a few steps was staring at his own wanted poster. It startled him so badly that his mind went blank for a second. A little thrill of fear or excitement or wonder ran through him. It was not the poster itself. It was that it was in the room he was occupying. It was as if the Nelsons had known of his coming and had made sure that he knew the offer was still good. He took a step or two back, blinking, and then took a quick drink of whiskey.

At that instant, Lee Gray came sliding through the half-opened door. He glanced at Longarm and then to where Longarm was staring at the poster.

Lee Gray said, “Don’t get all het up. They ain’t singled you out. They don’t know it’s you here. There’s one in every room. There’s one in the dining room and one in the bar. Of course, there ain’t much chance of anybody recognizing you. It ain’t a real good likeness.”

Longarm shook his head, walked back to the table, and sat down. He said, “It kind of caught me off guard for a second. It made my skin crawl.”

Lee Gray walked over to the table, took a chair himself, and watched as Longarm poured out a glass of whiskey and shoved it across to him. Gray said, “Yeah, I can understand that. It ain’t a real nice sight for a peaceful young fellow like you to be taking a gander at. This damned room is so white that it does tend to stand out.”

“It caught me off guard, Lee. I’d already sat down and poured out a drink and was waiting on you, and that damned thing jumped out and hit me in the face,” Longarm said.

Gray held out his glass. “Well, let’s wash down some of the dust and forget about it for a moment.”

They made a toast to luck and then knocked back their drinks.

Longarm said, “This is a hell of a mess, Lee. That Henderson kid missing scares me to death and I feel like it’s my fault. I should have come instead of letting Billy Vail send such an inexperienced young deputy.”

Lee Gray didn’t say anything. He picked up the bottle and poured himself and Longarm another glass of whiskey.

After they had sat for a moment, Lee pulled out the makings from his pocket and rolled a cigarette. When it was drawing good, he said, “This kid Henderson, was he old enough to be a deputy marshal?”

“Hell, yes, Lee. You know we’ve got requirements. He had previous law experience.”

“So, he was judged to be good enough to be a deputy U.S. marshal?”

“Yeah, what are you aiming at?”

Lee Gray shrugged. “Well, if you’ve hired a man to do the job and if he’s proven himself able to do the job, it’s my way of thinking that you ought to let him do the job.”

Longarm scowled. “Hell, Lee. You know there’s jobs and then there’s jobs. And you know there’s different levels of experience. He came in here like a bull with his eyes shut. He sent me a telegram that must have alerted the sheriff, and now he’s disappeared. I take it you haven’t picked up any sign of him while I’ve been on the way?”

Gray took a draw on his cigarette and shook his head. “Nope. Not hide nor hair. Nobody knows anything. Of course, I’ve been stepping around kind of light. It would be my guess that the sheriff knows, a man named Ralph Nevins. If there’s anybody in this town on the Nelsons’ payroll, it would be him.”

Longarm looked up quickly. “Have you found out anything about the Nelsons?”

Lee nodded slowly. “Yeah, but it don’t make a damned bit of sense.” He motioned around with his hand. “it makes about as much sense as putting in a hotel like this in a place like Santa Rosa. Ain’t this the damnedest-looking thing you’ve ever seen?”

“I keep expecting to go over to the window and see trolley cars running up and down the street.”

“Well, the only thing that would be running up and down the street at this time of night in this town would be a drunk or a runaway dog.”

Longarm said, “Well, tell me about the Nelsons. Are they real? This ain’t no joke about these posters?”

Lee shook his head slowly. “Now, I can’t tell you whether it is or not. These people around here are either damned closed-mouthed when it comes to those posters, or they don’t know a damned thing. I think the latter is the most likely. But I can guarantee you that Sheriff Nevins knows something, and maybe even his deputy. Maybe even the town marshal, named Joe Black.”

“Well quit fotching around and tell me about these folks who want me dead or alive, preferably alive.”

Lee Gray leaned back in his chair and stretched. With his lanky build, it seemed like it took five minutes to go all the way out and come back. He said, “They’re three brothers from somewhere up north, one of those states that you never hear much about like Massachusetts or New York or Vermont or Maine. Pennsylvania maybe, or maybe even South Dakota. Hell, I don’t know, big snow country. I know they’re supposed to have made a pile of money in some place in Africa gold mining. They’re supposed to have made a ton of money. They came back and they picked out a place that looked like where they made their fortune, and southeast New Mexico was it. The word I have is that they’ve built themselves a palace about fifteen miles south of here.”

“You ain’t seen it?”

Lee shook his head again and said, “Nope. Your instructions were to stay close and ask questions. I never had time for a thirty-mile ride. Besides, if you’ve seen one palace, you’ve seen them all. I understand that it’s one hell of a place, that it’s bigger than the hotel, if you can believe that. Anyway, they’re supposed to live out there and they don’t do much of anything except occasionally get some friends in—that’s what this top floor is for, and they even have a special train that they run them in here with—and they’ll play poker for about a week. They may even bring in a trainload of women, and then they go back out to the ranch. Nobody knows what it is that they do out there. They don’t raise cattle, they don’t raise horses. They don’t raise anything except a little bit of hell.”

“That’s it?”

Lee shrugged and said, “Hell, I knew you were going to say that, but without going over there and bracing the mayor or the banker or the sheriff or the marshal, I didn’t have any way to find out. The only thing I can tell you is that the people who ought to know say they’ve never seen this Henderson kid.”

“What about the telegrapher?” said Longarm.

“He says he doesn’t remember sending any such telegram.”

“They must have more than one telegrapher. They must have one that works days and one that works nights.”

“Well, the one that I talked to said there wasn’t a receipt logged in for it. He said there wasn’t a single telegram sent to Denver in at least a week.

“But they know this Henderson kid is a deputy marshal. Apparently, he made it clear right from the moment he hit town that he was a deputy marshal, a deputy United States marshal.”

Longarm said, “Oh, by the way, so are you. I’ve just sworn you in. You’re a special deputy United States marshal.”

Lee Gray pulled a face. “Is this some more of Billy Vail’s generosity?

That’s six dollars a day and all I can eat for fifty cents a day?”

“I’ll see that you make out a little better than that, Lee.”

Gray waved his hand as if to indicate that it didn’t matter. He said, “You got a plan?”

Longarm shook his head. “Not yet. All I can think to do right now is to get some of this trail dust off of me and get a few hours of sleep and then get busy.”

“How are you and me going to play it?”

“For right now, I think it’s best if we don’t know each other. What’s your room number?”

“I’m just down the hall in 201.”

“I think what you better do is watch my back. I don’t know to what extremes I’ve got to go. I think I’ve got to start looking for Ross Henderson right here in town, and I think I’m going to start with the sheriff.”

“Are you going to be just a friendly neighbor riding through or are you going to be Longarm, the marshal who has the price on his head?”

Longarm shook his head again. “I don’t know, Lee. Right now, I’m about as confused as I’ve ever been. I feel like a man in a five-dollar whorehouse with four dollars in his pocket. I don’t know if it would take me all the way. As soon as I come out of cover and declare who I am, then I become fair game for everybody in this town.”

Lee Gray smiled a slow, sleepy smile. “Oh, I wouldn’t exactly say fair game, Longarm. I think you can take care of yourself. I think it might be that anybody in town would be stupid to take you on. No, you’re not going to get me to shed any crocodile tears worrying about you.”

“And, of course, I will have you at my back.”

Gray smiled. “Yeah, that’s what you’ve got to worry about.”

Longarm laughed, drained his glass, and then stood up. “Well, get on out of here and let me get a bath and some sleep. I’m going to be in the dining room about seven o’clock eating breakfast. Why don’t you plan on being there close to the same time. You can generally walk in the same direction I walk. Don’t shoot anybody unless it’s clear they are fixing to shoot me.”

“You want me to let him actually pull the trigger before I shoot him?”

Longarm gave the man a wry smile. “Lee, you were always a comfort to a body. Always.”

Lee Gray left, and Longarm locked the door and then started running the tub full of hot water. He was tired and creaky and cramped from his long trip on the train. He sat down and began undressing, trying to figure out the perplexing question of how he went about finding a deputy marshal without acting like one himself. It was all very confusing.

Lee Gray was not in the dining room the next morning when Longarm entered the place and sat at a corner table. He went ahead with his breakfast, ordering ham, a half-dozen eggs, and biscuits with gravy and a pot of coffee. He ate slowly, looking the room over. It was sparsely filled, but then it probably wasn’t supposed to be a going concern, a business that made money. The hotel was obviously a hobby for the Nelson brothers, a place where they could have parties in town without forcing their guests to ride fifteen miles across the New Mexico prairie. Longarm was about halfway through his breakfast when he saw Lee come in, go to a far table, and sit where he could keep an eye on Longarm. Longarm made no sign other than to wave the waiter over and ask for more biscuits.

As he ate, Longarm thought for perhaps the thousandth time about the United States Marshal Service. It had come into being back when there were more territories than states, mostly because local law could not cope with the banditry and lawlessness that flourished all along the frontiers and among the rough and ready elements of the interior. Too many of the lawmen were corrupt, and those who weren’t corrupt were weak, and those who weren’t corrupt or weak were dead. The worst problem was that local lawmen’s areas of jurisdiction were small. A town marshal was confined to the limits of his town, and a sheriff to his county. There were some state lawmen such as the Texas Rangers or the Arizona Rangers, but they were few and far between, often badly organized, and for the most part badly run. As a result, the federal government had created a body of lawmen who had authority anywhere within the boundaries of the United States and their authority was greater than that of any local law. They could take a prisoner away from any sheriff; they could make a prisoner out of any local sheriff. They had authority to act as judge and jury if none were available. They were, because of the circumstances of the times and places and distances, virtually a law unto themselves. As a result, standards for entering the service were very high.

But yet, here he was in a town unable to use that authority on a possibly corrupt sheriff and a possibly corrupt town marshal and mayor. It was perplexing at the very least. He could commandeer a train from a federally subsidized railroad if he had to, and he could commandeer any useful article, be it animal or man, off any army post or military post or government or federal post of any sort in the United States. He could write out a voucher for a horse or a house or a whore, and that voucher would be honored by the United States Treasurer, though in the case of the house or the whore he probably wouldn’t have a job very long. But with all that authority, he had to slip around in a one-horse, two-dog town. It made him nearly angry, although anger was something he seldom indulged in.

Longarm finished his breakfast and then dawdled over his last cup of coffee, waiting for Lee Gray to finish. He didn’t want to get too far ahead of his backup. His plan was to go straight to the sheriff’s office and elicit whatever information he could. He had not yet decided on an approach; he figured he would play it as it went. He did want to have a word or two with Lee about the possibility of a mount before he saw the sheriff. He figured they could do that outside on the sidewalk. He figured he could borrow a match from Lee or Lee could borrow a match from him.

When he saw that Lee was about finished, he called the waiter over and paid his tab, and then sauntered leisurely out of the dining room and across the big lobby through the big doors. Then he stopped on the boardwalk underneath the big overhang that fronted the hotel. The town was up and moving, though it didn’t seem to be much of a thriving concern. Like most towns of New Mexico, it mainly depended on a few cattle ranches, a few goat ranches, and what few hopeful miners were still working the exhausted claims. There was silver to be found in that part of the state, but not much in the way of gold. That was further up north around the mountain country.

Lee Gray came out, and Longarm stuck a cheroot in his mouth. There was no one around, but he still said, “Got a match, stranger?”

Gray fished in his pocket and handed him a yellow-headed match. Longarm struck it with the thick nail of his thumb, got the cheroot drawing good, and then flicked the match away. He said, “Much obliged, neighbor. Wonder where a man would go about getting a good horse around here.”

Gray was looking off as if he were trying to recognize someone across the street. He said, “There’s a livery stable about two blocks east of here toward the train depot. There’s two damned good horses in there and two sets of rigging and saddles. I brought them with me. I might be willing to loan one of them out to the necessary people if the price was right.”

Longarm said, still without looking at Lee, “Neighbor, I don’t see where you have too much choice since those two animals just became government property. As you know, since you’ve been one before, a special deputy draws six dollars a day and has to furnish his own mount and cartridges.”

Lee Gray chuckled dryly. “Yeah, but they don’t say nothing about me furnishing you a mount.”

“Let’s just kind of stroll that way and we’ll discuss this as we go. Either one of these horses worth anything?”

They walked along slowly as two men might, tipping their hats to the few ladies that passed.

Gray said, “I’ve got a six-year-old black in there. He’s quarter horse and Morgan crossed. I haven’t found bottom in him yet and on top of that, he’s got some speed. Not a hell of a lot of speed, just some, but if I wanted a horse that would last, that would be the one. The only thing is, he hasn’t really been tried around gunfire. He’s still young, six years old, and he’s got a full neck because I didn’t cut him until he was around four.”

“And I guess the other horse is the best?”

“The other horse is like me. A little older and a good deal wiser. Got a ten-year-old bay, one of the calmest, stablest stallions I’ve ever known. I never did cut him. Of course, you know if you get him near a mare in season, he’s going to act like a stallion, just like you do.”

Longarm said, “Do I get my choice?”

Lee Gray said, “I never known you to crack a lot of jokes, mister. Is that one supposed to be funny?”

“All right, I reckon I’ll take the black.”

“I’ll just walk you on down there then,” said Lee Gray, and introduce you to the stable man and tell him that you’re renting that horse. You give him a dollar or two and he’ll give it extra care.”

“Why don’t you give him a dollar or two?”

“Because you’ve got to if you want the horse well cared for and you’re going to be the one riding him.”

Longarm said dryly, “You always was a quick thinker.”

The two men went into the livery stable and Longarm looked the black over. He was a medium-sized horse, weighing somewhere between nine hundred and a thousand pounds. He had a long neck and a long body. Longarm could tell he was a stayer by the size of his chest. He also had big enough hind quarters, and Longarm figured that the horse could get some speed. Lee Gray completed the instructions to the stable hand, and Longarm gave him a couple of dollars and asked the boy to make sure and keep the horse well supplied with feed and hay and water. He gave the boy a wink and said, “I know he’d get it anyway, but this way, you get a little extra and I make sure that I’ve got a little extra horse under me. This man here claims that black is a good one. What do you think?”

The kid, who couldn’t have been more than seven or eighteen years old, nodded his head vigorously. “Oh, yes, sir. If this gentleman says this horse is a good one, then he is a good one. You can tell it just by looking at him.”

Longarm and Gray walked outside. Longarm said, the banter and the joking tone gone out of his voice, “I’m going down to see the sheriff. Don’t get too close but if you hear a gunshot, you might better come on in.”

It was a block and a half down to the sheriff’s office he had passed the previous night when he’d been coming from the train. This time, he opened the door and went in. The desk was still against the side wall. He could see a door that apparently led back to some cells, since it had bars in it. The man behind the desk looked to be in his mid-thirties. Except for a slight paunch, he was well set up in the shoulders and had a bull neck and big fists. He had his hat off, and Longarm could see that he was starting to bald in the front. Longarm’s badge was still concealed in his left front pocket. The man looked up as Longarm entered. He didn’t say anything, just watched Longarm as he crossed the office.

There was another desk in the office, but it wasn’t occupied. Longarm didn’t know if it was for another deputy or the town marshal.

“I’m looking for Sheriff Nevins,” Longarm said.

The man gave Longarm an open appraising look. “Yeah, what for?”

“Are you Sheriff Nevins?”

“Who’s asking?”

The man’s attitude was starting to irritate Longarm the least bit. He said, “I reckon you must not be Sheriff Nevins because if you were, you’d be proud to admit it, being the sheriff of this here county.”

The burly man bristled slightly. “What the hell do you mean by that remark, fellow?”

Longarm was standing before the man at his desk. He repeated, “Are you Sheriff Nevins?”

“Yeah, so what?”

“I’m looking for someone I have reason to believe was here a few days back. His name is Ross Henderson. He was a United States deputy marshal, and I’m pretty certain he had a conversation with you.”

The burly man had a big face, but small pig-like eyes. His eyes narrowed. He shook his head. “No, I ain’t seen nobody by that name.”

“It ain’t so much the name I’m talking about, Sheriff, as the title. You heard me when I said United States deputy marshal, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, I heard it. What’s it supposed to mean to me?”

Longarm said, “Are you going to tell me he didn’t come see you?”

“Listen, fellow, I don’t know who you are or what the hell you think you’re playing at, but you’re playing at it with the wrong man. Now, I’d advise you to turn your little cornbread ass around and get the hell out of here before I get angry and slam you in one of them cells I’ve got back there.”

Longarm leaned forward on the desk. He did it to bring his face closer to the sheriff’s, but he did it also to see if there was a drawer half open with a revolver ready to hand. The drawers were closed. The only weapon the sheriff was carrying was in the holster on his side.

Longarm said, “I’m going to try and be as polite about this for as long as you let me. After that, I’m afraid me and you are going to have to get serious. I’m going to ask you one more time and this time, you better understand that things might not go the way you expect them to if you give me the wrong answer. Now, what did you tell U.S. Deputy Marshal Ross Henderson and which way did you send him?”

The sheriff suddenly stood up. “All right, you sonofabitch,” he said. “Turn around and put your hands in the air. You’re under arrest.”

Before he could pull the gun his hand was reaching for, Longarm had whipped out his own and stuck it right between the man’s eyes. He said, “Let that gun down easy on the desk. It’s in your hand, but if it gets anywhere near to pointing toward me, you’re going to have the back of your head missing. You understand me, hombre?”

The sheriff suddenly went pale. He said, “You can’t do this. I’m the sheriff. Are you crazy? You can’t walk in here and pull this.”

Longarm said, “Walk on around that desk now and set that pistol down as you go. Just keep walking on around real slow. Don’t get loose from the end of my revolver. I want it right where it is, right between your eyes.”

As the sheriff came around the end of the desk, Longarm suddenly stepped behind him and shoved him forward with his left hand. He said, “Now, you were talking about somebody going back to one of them cells. Let’s see who that somebody is. Walk on over to that door and get that key and open it. You and I are going to go back there and see what we can find. I better damned sure not find any young United States deputy marshals.”

The sheriff was still bristling. He said, “You’re in a hell of a lot of trouble, mister.”

Using the barrel of his revolver, Longarm tapped the sheriff on his balding head, just hard enough to split the skin but not hard enough to knock him down. “Does that tell you anything about who might be in trouble?”

The sheriff let out a yowl and threw his hand up to his wounded head.

Longarm chopped him across the wrist. “Get that damned hand down and get over to that door.”

Reluctantly, sullenly, the sheriff walked toward the door that led back to the cells. There was a loop of keys hanging on a nail by the side. He reached out, took the keys, and fitted one into the lock of the door. As he did, Longarm’s attention was drawn to a line of wanted posters. With some amusement, he noticed that his was among them. It did not improve his temper.

The sheriff swung the door open, but didn’t enter. Longarm said, “Get in there.” He punched the man in the back with the barrel of his revolver. “Just in case you forgot, this ain’t a broom handle I’m holding here.”

They stepped into the dim cool interior of the cell block. There was a surprising number of cells for such a small town—six, three on each side. In one, a small ragged Mexican was sleeping on a cot. Other than that, Longarm could see the cells were empty. He reached back and pulled the entrance door closed behind him. He said to the sheriff, “Now, march on back to that last cell on the left and unlock it. Swing the door open and you swing on in.”

“Fellow, I don’t know who you are, but you must be crazy. You don’t see no U.S. deputy marshal in here, do you?”

Longarm said, “Oh, I don’t know. There might be one in here, you never know. Let’s look real close.”

“You’re crazy, you sonofabitch.”

Longarm tapped him with the revolver barrel again. Once more, the sheriff winced, ducked his head, and tried to bring his hand up, and once again, Longarm slashed him on the wrist. “You are a slow learner, aren’t you?

I reckon you’re going to have to stand some pain before you get the message.”

With the barrel of his revolver prodding the sheriff in the small of his back, Longarm marched him down to the last cell on the left and had him open the door and swing it back. A thin little trickle of blood had run down the sheriff’s head and was dripping down on his collar and the back of his neck. Longarm said, “Step on in there, Sheriff.”

The man hesitated. “Now, look,” he said. “Suppose you tell me what the hell is going on here. Just who are you? And what business is it of yours about some U.S. deputy marshal? I’d like to know why you’re so all-fired interested in this.”

Longarm gave the sheriff a shove forward. He said, “That ain’t none of your business, Sheriff. You claimed you don’t know anything about any U.S. deputy marshal.”

Sheriff Nevins stopped halfway across the cell. He stood there. He said, “I don’t know anything about any U.S. deputy marshal, but you seem convinced that I do. I don’t know what business it would be of yours if I did know something. You ain’t said who you are, what your name is, or what your business is yet.”

Longarm prodded him a step further. He was facing the solid wall of the side of the cell. A cot was hung from the wall, sticking out about three feet into the little enclosure. Longarm said as he put his revolver into his holster, “Now, turn around and look at me, Sheriff.”

As the man turned, Longarm balled his left fist and drew it back. As the sheriff came face to face with him, Longarm hit him as hard as he could with his left hand, driving forward off the balls of his feet, putting the whole weight of his shoulders behind the punch. The sheriff’s head was hard, but Longarm could feel the bone bend and the man’s skin break under his knuckles. It hurt his hands. He hadn’t hit him with his right hand for fear that he might damage the hand that he used with good effect in gunplay. Longarm followed through on the punch, letting it carry him forward. The sheriff’s eyes had rolled back into his head and his mouth had snapped open. He went straight backwards, hit the wall, and then slumped down on the couch.

Longarm never paused. Very briskly, he leaned down, grabbed the sheriff by the shoulders, and then slammed him back against the wall. The sheriff’s head was lolling on his shoulders, but he was not unconscious. Deliberately, Longarm stepped back, lifted his right leg, and rammed his boot straight into the ribs on the sheriff’s left side. He felt the bone crunch. The sheriff gave a gasp and seemed to almost lift up off the bed. He grabbed his side, moaning. Blood was already trickling down from the cut on his cheekbone where Longarm’s punch had landed. Now he was gasping for air with his bruised and broken ribs.

Longarm said, “I ain’t wasting no more punches on your damned hard head, but I reckon you’re liable to not appreciate it in your ribs.” He jerked the sheriff’s hands away from his body and then began to slam him, first with a right and then a left and another right into the ribs, hard, heavy, thudding blows. The sheriff moaned, and then screamed in agony as one particular blow caught the broken ends of two ribs, driving them into flesh. He began to blubber, to sob and claw at Longarm’s arms. Longarm stepped back and caught him with a hard blow on the chin so that the sheriff’s chin snapped back against the wall.

Longarm said, “Don’t interfere with me, boy. I’m softening you up.”

The sheriff said, “For God’s sake, stop! Stop, man, stop! You’re killing me.”

Longarm stepped back and stood there, breathing hard, staring at the man. He said, “Now, is your memory getting any better or do you want those ribs beat up on some more?”

The sheriff had his head tilted back in agony. His eyes were slitted and his mouth was working. He was holding his right side. He said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. What are you doing here? Are you crazy?”

Longarm said briskly, “Have it your own way.” He jerked the sheriff’s hands out of the way and again began the workmanlike business of slamming the sheriff in the ribs with hard, driving, sledgehammer blows. His big hands brought a whoosh out of the sheriff’s lungs with each pounding blow. Now the sheriff was trying to ward him off and trying to stand up. Longarm hit him in the throat with the flat of his hand and knocked him back down.

The sheriff said, “Wait! Wait! I’ll talk to you! Wait a minute!” The blow to his throat had made his voice hoarse and guttural. He said, “I’ll talk to you.”

Longarm stepped back and waited.

The sheriff said, “Water, give me some water, please. I can’t talk. You’ve done ruined my Adam’s apple.”

“There ain’t no water in here and I don’t have time to get any,” Longarm said. “Now, you tell me about Ross Henderson. He was here, wasn’t he?”

The sheriff nodded with a slight but perceptible move of his head.

Longarm said, “Well, was he here or wasn’t he? I want to hear you say it.”

The sheriff said, “Yes, he was here. He was talking to my deputy.”

“Now don’t go telling me he only talked to your deputy. You talked to him also.”

The sheriff had one hand up, massaging his throat. “Why don’t you tell me what business this is of yours and I can help you. Maybe.”

Longarm said, “You’re going to be the only one doing the telling around here. Now, you talked to him, didn’t you. Because the telegrapher came down and told you that he had sent a telegram in which Henderson warned someone about the law here and about the sheriff and the town marshal. Isn’t that true?”

The information made the sheriff glance up suspiciously. He said, “How did you know that?”

Longarm said, lying, “Because I beat it out of the telegrapher. That’s how I know and that’s how I know all about you. Now, do you want to take some more punishment or do you want to start talking straight this time?”

The sheriff seemed to collapse. He seemed to be giving up the will to struggle. Hanging his head, he said, “Yeah, that deputy marshal came in here. You could tell he didn’t know which end of the dog the tail was on. I figured out who he was. He wanted to know about the Nelsons. Well, I figured the best way for him to find out the Nelsons was for him to go meet them.”

Longarm said, “You sent him out to the Nelsons?”

The sheriff looked up. “Yeah, that’s who he was asking for.”

Longarm pointed toward the general direction of the front office. He said, “You got a wanted poster on a United States deputy marshal right out there in your office that is supposed to be from the Nelsons. Ain’t that a fact?”

The sheriff nodded slowly, but winced as he did so. He put his hand to his throat. “Yeah, I know it. Hell, I thought maybe that deputy was that one on the poster.”

Longarm cocked his head. He said, “Why, you dirty sonofabitch. You’re supposed to be a lawman and you sent another lawman to where he might get killed? What the hell kind of low-down no-good snake are you?”

The sheriff looked up defiantly. “Listen, this is my damned county and I’ll run it to suit myself.”

Longarm shook his head. He reached over, took hold of the badge that was on the sheriff’s shirt, and ripped it loose. He said, “No, you ain’t the sheriff no more.”

The sheriff looked startled. “What gives you the right to be doing that?”

Longarm reached up and unbuttoned the pocket of his shirt, taking out his badge. He said, “This does. I’m also a United States deputy marshal and I’m holding you for malfeasance in office, you sonofabitch. You’re in this cell and you’re going to stay in this cell. Anybody who lets you out is going to join you in this cell or they are going to get dead, just as you are going to get dead if you come out of here. Do you understand that, you bastard?”

The sheriff made as if to half rise. He said, “You can’t do this.”

Longarm raised his boot and kicked the sheriff square in the chest. Another whoosh of air came out of his lungs.

Longarm said, “Now you get the straight, Nevins. You’re through. You are dead through.”

The sheriff tried to croak. In a small voice, almost a whisper, he said, “The people of this county elected me sheriff. You can’t take my badge.”

“You can’t be sheriff and be in jail at the same time. I’ve arrested you for malfeasance while in office. Here you sit. Now, how long ago did you send young Henderson out to the Nelsons?”

The sheriff shook his head weakly. “I don’t know, you’ve got my head ringing. A couple of days ago. I can’t hardly think. Maybe it was the first day he was here or maybe it was the second day he was here. I don’t remember which.”

“Did you warn him about that poster?”

“I don’t know what that poster means.”

“You sonofabitch. You’re lying.”

“No, I ain’t,” the sheriff said. He looked completely whipped and down. “Listen, mister. I’ve done told you all I know. The Nelsons are rich folks who get their way. If they tell me to do something, I do it.”

“Are they serious with that poster?”

The sheriff said, his words halting, “Damned if I know. They don’t tell me nothing.”

“Well, you better remember this. I’m the one on that poster they want. They’re fixing to get another deputy, and if anything has happened to him, I’m going to come back here and beat you to death. Understand?”

The sheriff looked up at him with a swollen face. “I’m just small potatoes in this. I don’t even know what’s going on.”

Longarm backed out of the cell and then slammed the door and turned the key. He said, “You better not come out of that cell. You’re under arrest. I’ll kill you if you come out. And if your deputy is part of this, he’s going to join you.”

With that, Longarm turned and walked down the corridor, pausing only long enough to open the cell of the sleeping Mexican. After that, he unlocked the connecting door to the outer office and walked through it.

Just as he came into the sunlight of the office, the front door opened and Lee Gray came in, hurrying and looking alert. He said, “Longarm, you’d better get ready. That deputy is about a half a block from here. Him and the mayor are walking together and it looks like they’re coming in here. What’s been happening?”

Longarm made a noise like laughter. He said, “What the hell hasn’t been happening.”

Chapter 5

He never gave the deputy or the mayor a chance to ask a question. Instead, he backed them up against a wall and explained to them who he was and what he was there for and what had happened to the sheriff. He said, “Now, I have every reason to believe that both of you had a hand in sending that young marshal into a trap. By rights, I ought to put both of your asses back there in the cell with the sheriff, but I’m not going to do it.” He looked at the deputy, who was a man in his early thirties, not particularly impressive. He looked at the mayor, who was a little older and a little fatter. He said, “Now this man over here”—he jerked his head over toward Lee Gray—“is a sworn deputy marshal in the United States Marshal Service. He outranks everybody in this town except me. If you let that sheriff out or do anything to get word to the Nelsons, both of your asses are going to wish that you had never been born. I’ll personally see to that. This thing has done got personal with me. I’m mean by nature. Just plain mean to begin with, and when somebody goes and puts wanted posters out on me, I get worse than a rattlesnake. Then to make matters worse, you lie to a young man and maybe even send him to his death. Ain’t nobody in the world can get any meaner than I am right now. So don’t fuck with me, don’t fuck with me at all, or I’ll tear your asses off and feed them to you. Understand?”

He had walked up close to the two and was pushing his face into the face of first one and then the other. They glanced sideways at one another and swallowed.

Longarm said, “Do I make myself clear?”

The mayor nodded. “Yes, Marshal Long. We don’t know anything about this poster business. We didn’t have anything to do with that. I admit that the young marshal did come to see me, and I didn’t cooperate with him as I might have because the Nelsons are a powerful family around here and I didn’t want any trouble with them. I didn’t tell him anything. But I had nothing to do with sending him out there.”

Longarm swung around to face the deputy. “How about you?”

“Marshal, I … I don’t know anything myself. He was talking to the sheriff mostly. I didn’t have much to do with it. Like the mayor said, the Nelsons are a powerful family. We thought it was a joke, someone putting out a wanted notice on a man like yourself. I mean, the name Longarm is famous around here.”

“Fine. So you both understand what will happen to you if I get any interference or if anything happens that ain’t supposed to happen, like that sheriff getting out of jail.”

The deputy nodded his head. He said, “Yes, sir. I understand.”

Longarm said, “How about you, Mayor?”

The mayor nodded vigorously. “Oh, yes, sir!”

Longarm stepped back and glanced at Lee Gray, who was leaning against a far wall. “What do you think, Lee?”

Lee Gray shrugged his shoulders, “Well, they sound pretty cooperative to me right now, and they’ll probably be cooperative enough as long as you’re around. But then, they’ll probably try and get a little high behind, wouldn’t you reckon?”

Longarm nodded. He could see where Lee was going. “Yeah, I reckon.”

“And then I’m going to have to beat the shit out of both of them and then slam them in a cell, just like you did that sheriff. So I guess it’s just all to do over again.”

Longarm said with a straight face, “Yes, I’d reckon, but don’t kill either one, will ya?”

“Not unless I have to.”

Both the deputy and the mayor were making protesting noises, swearing to their non-involvement in the disappearance of the deputy and swearing they would not cause the Federal Marshal Service any trouble. That they’d never had any idea that any actions of theirs could have done such a thing, and that they were law-abiding citizens and upholders of the law and intended to remain so.

Longarm turned on his heels and gave them a long steady look. He said without turning his head, “Now, will you listen to them, Lee? Boy, they sure sing a different tune depending on who’s playing the fiddle.”

Lee Gray said, “They must not care for that six-gun fiddle music and they must not care for getting whomped up on. I’m kinda looking forward to them stepping over the line. I always did have a kind of a dislike for these little hick-town tinhorns, shoving folks around and one thing and another, Yeah, I reckon I’ll be giving a pistol-whipping before you get back.”

Longarm turned back to the mayor and the deputy sheriff and said, “That brings up the question of where this castle that belongs to the Nelsons is located.” He looked at the deputy. “Do you want to tell me?”

The deputy swallowed visibly. He was an ordinary man in what had been an ordinary job who’d suddenly found himself in a situation that had suddenly turned extraordinary. He said, “Marshal, I ain’t been out there but once, maybe twice. I’ve taken some of his big guests out there one time. There ain’t no road, there’s just prairie all the way and it’s about a hard fifteen-mile ride south of here. You can’t miss the place. It’s damned near, well, it’s nearly as big as the hotel and it’s white. They like white things—I don’t know why—and it’s just there. It has several barns, a bunch of corrals where they keep some horses out there, and they even keep some wild pigs—some of them big Russian boar pigs from Arkansas—and they are always riding around sticking lances in them. I’d call them spears, but they call them lances for some reason. And they’ve got some other kinds of animals out there I don’t know what all they are. It’s just not the kind of place you hang around much.”

Longarm looked at the mayor. He said, “Tell me about the three brothers.”

The mayor’s fat little face quivered slightly. He said, “Marshal, I hope you realize that these men are not friends of mine and I don’t know a great deal about them. But from what talk I’ve heard, Asher is the head man. He’s over the others. I don’t know if he’s the oldest, it’s hard to tell. They all kind of look the same, all built up strong, all of them are kind of blond, and they are all pretty well tan, and there’s not much else I can tell you about them. They are well spoke and they’re polite and they wear the best damned boots I’ve ever seen. I don’t know what kind of leather that is, but it’s just a subtle and nice and shines up, oh, you wouldn’t believe it.”

Longarm said, “I ain’t interested in a description of their boots, Mayor. How many guns they got out there?”

The deputy glanced at the mayor. He said, “Guns? Well, sir, I don’t know. I’ve never been in the house to see, but they do have some big rifles.”

Longarm gave him a look of disgust while Lee Gray snickered. “No, you idiot. How many gunhands do they have? How many pistoleros?”

The deputy’s face cleared. “Oh, they ain’t got any.”

Longarm frowned. “They haven’t got any?”

The mayor nodded. “That’s right. Everybody has always commented on that, but then, they don’t need none. They don’t have any cattle and what horses they’ve got are kept up close.”

“Who works the place?”

The deputy said, “Well, they’ve got a bunch of vaqueros around there that tend to the livestock and one thing and another, and they’ve got some women who tend to the cooking. But they ain’t got no regular what you’d call gunslingers out there, the way most men in this part of the county who ranch have to have. They ain’t got nothing to steal.” He paused. “Besides that, Marshal, those three brothers have a reputation of being men you don’t want to fool with.” He glanced over at the mayor. “Ah, maybe the mayor can tell you what I’m talking about.”

The mayor gave the deputy a furious look. “This man doesn’t know what he’s saying, Marshal. We’ve just had some people who disappeared who had headed in that direction, but that don’t mean nothing. These were roustabouts, ne’er-do-wells who headed south, some in pairs, some in threes, and some singularly. Some of them never was heard of again. A few of their horses come back, but that don’t mean nothing about the Nelsons. Like I’ve said, the Nelsons have been mighty good to this town, and for all we know, they’re upstanding folks.”

Longarm pointed toward the poster on the wall. “What about that?”

The mayor instantly began shaking his head. “I don’t know nothing about that, Marshal. No, sir, I don’t know a thing.”

The deputy said, “Me neither, sir. Nothing.”

“That’s mighty handy for the both of you,” Longarm said. He paused for a moment. “Mayor, are you married?”

The mayor nodded rapidly. He said, “Yes, sir. I am.”

“Then I’m going to have to send a boy to your house to tell your wife that you’re not going to be home for twenty-four hours.”

Longarm looked at the deputy. “What about you?”

The deputy shook his head. “No, sir, I’m not. What’s all this about?”

Longarm said, “It’s about neither one of you leaving this place for the next twenty-four hours. I don’t want to get out to the Nelsons and find out that advance word has reached them. So for the time being, you’re going to be in the company of Marshal Gray over here. If I’s you, I’d be on my Ps and Qs because he’s a mean sonofabitch. In a little while, you’re going to get to see what happened to the sheriff when he tripped over his own feet and fell down. And what came to the sheriff will come triple to both of you from Marshal Lee Gray over here, I can promise you that, and it will all be within the law. If he’s got to kill you, he killed you while you were escaping. You understand?”

They vied with each other in trying to see which could nod their head the fastest. Longarm looked at them for a moment, and then turned on his heels and walked to the front door. Lee Gray opened it and they went on through. They stood at the edge of the boardwalk and talked for a moment.

Lee Gray said, “Longarm, I don’t like the idea of you going out to that place by yourself. That bunch sounds kind of deadly to me and I think you need me to back you up.”

“Yeah, Lee, I do, and I wish you could, but it’s more important to me to have that sheriff and deputy and mayor put in a jug and the cork put in on top of them to give me that twenty-four-hour head start I need. I don’t want word getting there ahead of me. I’m afraid that’s what happened in the case of young Ross Henderson.”

Lee Gray shrugged. “Well, it makes sense to me. I just hate to see you riding blind into a situation like that. You got any last orders for me?”

Longarm scratched the back of his head while he thought the question over. He said, “Well, don’t forget that you are a special deputy United States marshal. If there’s any question about it, Billy Vail can confirm it by wire. I haven’t got a badge to hand you, but you are the law, so don’t forget that.” He thought a minute more. “Don’t be no hero. If I ain’t back here in what seems a reasonable amount of time, forty-eight hours or so, don’t come looking for me.”

Lee Gray said, “Well, what am I supposed to do? Give a donation to the church in your memory?”

Longarm smiled slowly. “You ain’t never been close enough to a church to even throw money at it, what are you talking about? No, if much more than forty-eight hours pass, you’d better wire Billy Vail and tell him that he’s lost another deputy. Tell him to start sending them in groups because we can’t seem to handle the situation one at a time.”

Lee Gray nodded his head toward the jail. “What about them in there?”

“To tell you the truth, I’d stick either the mayor or the deputy in a cell. Maybe even both of them. I damned sure wouldn’t give them no chance to talk to anybody or get loose. As a matter of fact, that’s what you better do, just plunk them in a cell.”

“What about the sheriff?”

“Well, he’s going to tell you he needs a doctor,” Longarm said. He looked off down the road for a second, and then came back to Lee Gray. “And he probably does, but he can’t have one, not at least for twenty-four hours. Get him a bottle of whiskey and maybe some laudanum.”

Lee Gray said, “You whip up on him pretty good?”

Longarm shrugged and then looked at his left fist, which was half swollen and bleeding. He said, “Well, I maybe broke a few ribs. Nothing worse than you or I have had a half-dozen times in our lives. Of course, I did keep hitting him in those broken ribs on account of he didn’t want to talk.”

Lee Gray shook his head. “Longarm, I’ve warned you about that temper. You know, if you keep going on, folks are going to start believing you really are mean.”

Longarm laughed. “I’d better get kicking, friend. You hold the fort down here and I’ll go on down south and see what I can make happen.”

He went, first to the hotel to get his extra revolver, some extra cartridges, and a bottle of bourbon. Then he went down to the kitchen and talked the cook into putting him up some dried beef and cheese and some biscuits in a flour sack. After that, he walked back to the livery stable and had the boy saddle the horse that Lee Gray was lending him. There was a set of saddlebags tied to the saddle, and Longarm stowed his vittles in one side and his extra revolver in the other, and put his extra cartridges in his right-hand shirt pocket. He asked the boy if they had a canteen, and the young man quickly filled him a five-gallon canvas sack. That was the best for use in the desert.

Longarm was under no illusions about the south New Mexico terrain. For flat country, it was about as rough as it got. Nothing grew there unless it was a rock or had a thorn or would bite you. It was easily as desolate a country as anything he knew of in the whole United States. It made him shake his head and wonder that men rich enough to live anywhere they wanted would have chosen such a place just because it reminded them of the country they had made their wealth in. He had heard of South Africa, but he couldn’t imagine another place as dry and desolate as the country he was about to pass through. That was why he was so grateful for the five-gallon canteen of water. It was enough to give his horse a little and still fill his needs. He didn’t expect to run into any springs or wells or water holes along the way.

Longarm led the horse out of the livery stable, mounted, touched the horse with his spurs, and rode south out of town. Lee Gray was off the street—back in the jail office, Longarm guessed. A few people stared at him as he went trotting down the street, but they didn’t seem too curious. As he left the confines of the town, he lifted the horse up into a gentle lope. He figured to lope the horse for fifteen or twenty minutes, then walk the horse for a like amount, and then bring him back up into a lope. It was a tried and true method of covering country while not wearing your horse down.

All too soon, he had dropped the town over the horizon. The landscape seemed to decline gently as it sloped toward the south and the border. He’d been told by more than one person that he couldn’t miss the Nelsons’ place, but alone in all that vastness with nothing but sagebrush and cactus and tumbleweeds and an occasional clump of greasewood and mesquite, he wasn’t so sure. Longarm didn’t have a compass except for the one in his head, but he kept as direct a line south as he could. The country rolled just a bit, but mainly it was flat. Looking back, though, he could see gentle little rises and falls. Overhead, the sun was up good, at about an eleven o’clock position, and even though it was still late spring or early summer, it was a sun very intent on letting you know it was there.

He kept on for two hours, figuring he’d covered at the very least twelve miles and maybe more. Finally, he struck a little rocky butte thrusting up for no reason in the middle of the dried-up plains, and he pulled his horse into what little shade the butte cast to let the animal blow a bit and to take some nourishment for himself. He dismounted, rummaged through his saddlebags, and then stood there, eating cheese and beef and biscuits and taking an occasional nip of whiskey. When he was finished, he lit a cheroot and looked toward the south wondering, thinking about what he might run into, what was the best approach, what was the best way.

Nothing came to mind. There seemed to be no other way to handle the matter except to walk up, pull out the wanted poster he had folded up in his hip pocket, and say, “I’M the man who’s wanted in this poster. Who the hell are you to be putting it out?” And then he reckoned that if anybody set out to try and claim a reward, he would take out his six-gun and start shooting. He didn’t think there was any cute way to do the thing; there wasn’t a sly way to approach it. So far as he could tell, it was one problem that didn’t have a back door. The only thing he could do was get up right in their faces and ask, “What the hell is going on and where is Ross Henderson?”

As he was thinking, his eyes were constantly roving over the landscape. Just slightly to his right, heading south, something caught his eye. At first, he thought it was a chalky rock or something like that, but the more he stared at it, the more he was convinced that it was nothing of Mother Nature’s doing. Without further ado, he buckled up the saddlebags, cinched his horse back up, and climbed aboard. He was going ahead for the white spot.

As he rode, the white spot got bigger and bigger, and within another mile began to turn into a house—a house as big as a hotel.

In another fifteen minutes, he swept under an archway built of concrete and stones and painted white. The legend carved into the top said “White’s Ranch.” It puzzled the hell out of him. If the people’s names were Nelson, why did they name their hotel White’s and why did they name their ranch White’s? It didn’t make any sense.

There was a road leading to the big house in the distance, perhaps a quarter mile off. The road was whitewashed. It left Longarm shaking his head. He had never seen such a thing.

But there was no denying that someone had created an oasis in the middle of the desert. For acres and acres around, the land was green and luxurious with grass and trees and ponds. He could see windmills working, and he could even see an artesian well blowing water straight up into the air. The house was not quite as big as the hotel—he could see that as he neared—but it was a close second. Beyond the house were several outbuildings, all painted white. There were corrals holding cattle and horses. He could see fields of good alfalfa hay, all irrigated by the water flowing from the artesian wells and pumped by the windmills. Somebody had gone through a hell of a lot of trouble to create something really magnificent in the middle of Hell. It was as if someone had made great big mud pies and then stuck a real cherry right in the middle of them.

Then, as he looked over the pastures, a sight caught his eyes that caused him to pull his horse up. He could see now that the pastures were fenced, probably with new barbed wire. And there were animals within those fences that he had never seen before. The only things he had ever seen wearing horns were either antelopes, deer, or elk. Some of these animals didn’t look anything like those. He also saw some of the strangest-looking cattle that he had ever seen. They looked like cattle, and then again they didn’t. They were black, and they had high curving horns, and they were big. He heard a sound, a roar, that made the hair stand up on the back of his neck. He had never heard anything like it before. He didn’t know what was going on, but he thought he had just heard a tiger or a lion roar, and if he had, he was expecting at any minute to see an elephant. But he had no time for that. He had other business. Apparently, these men had imported some wildlife from Africa to remind themselves of it, and if they wanted to do that, that was their business and none of his. He was after something else, and it had two legs and a deputy marshal’s badge on the front. That was the first order of business. The second order of business was the poster.

He put spurs to his horse and then rode directly to the front of the house. There was a long hitching rail there, and he dismounted and tied his horse. It was Lee Gray’s horse, and he didn’t know if the animal would ground-rein or not and didn’t want to take the chance.

He stood for a second, looking the house over. There was a low porch made of stone and tile that ran some twenty yards across the front. It was about ten yards wide. Then there were the big double wooden doors that were obviously the front entrance. There were also windows, but he couldn’t see through them. The architecture of the house was like nothing else he had ever seen in New Mexico, Arizona, or any other part of the Southwest. It wasn’t Spanish and it wasn’t frontier; it was like the hotel in Santa Rosa, just big and square.

He loosened his revolver in his holster, walked up the stone steps and across the stone porch, and took up the brass knocker on the door and pounded loudly. Almost as if his presence was expected or had been watched for, the door was suddenly opened by a small Mexican man in a starched white coat.

Longarm said, “I’m here to see the Nelsons.” He did not give his name.

The mezzo, or servant, turned without a word and padded softly down the long entrance hall, which was floored with tiles. He disappeared around the corner. Longarm stepped through the door and shut it behind him, but then just stood, uncertain as to what he should do or what was coming next. He did not have long to wait. In a moment, the little Mexican man was back standing at the end of the hall and waving him forward. Longarm strode down, walking across the red tiles, his spurs jingling hollowly in the long passageway. When he reached the end, Longarm saw that it opened into a big receiving or living room. It was sunk below the level of the entrance hall and had a huge fireplace on one side.

But that wasn’t what took Longarm’s eye immediately. A man was coming toward him. He was wearing a white silk shirt and tan gabardine pants. The man was tall and spare and his hair was graying, but in spite of the signs of aging, he had a youthful look about him in the way he walked. He came toward Longarm with his hand outstretched.

He said, “Well, hello. I’m Asher Nelson. Whom do I have the honor of greeting?”

Longarm descended the two steps down to the level of the living room. He put his hand out and shook Asher Nelson’s hand. The man’s grip was firm and quick. Longarm said, “My name is Deputy United States Marshal Custis Long, and I’m here to see you and your two brothers. I’ve got a few questions to ask you.”

“Well, this indeed is an honor for us—Marshal Long, did you say it was?”

Longarm looked at the man narrowly. He wondered if the man was acting. “Yes, Custis Long, though some people know me by my nickname, Longarm.”

Asher Nelson said, “Well, come in, Marshal. Sit down and I’ll send for some refreshments. Will you take wine, brandy, coffee, or something cool?”

Longarm said, “I’ll just settle for a glass of water right now, if you can spare it.”

Nelson laughed heartily. He said, “I think you must have meant that as a joke, Marshal, as you can see that we are well endowed with the commodity. We have six free-flowing artesian wells on the place and twenty windmills.”

Longarm nodded dryly. “Yeah, you’ve done a good job of finding water. It’s a hell of a place to come to find it, that’s all I can say.”

Asher Nelson was leading him toward the center of the room. There were big leather couches on all four sides, with chairs scattered about. There was a low table in the middle of the room. It was very much a masculine room, but somehow, it reminded Longarm of a hotel lobby. There were skins on the floor. He could see one of a zebra, one of a tiger, and several that he could not identify. On one whole wall of the huge room ran a gun case. It must, he thought, have contained thirty or forty rifles, some of them with telescopic sights.

Mr. Nelson bade him to sit down, and he took a chair at the end of one of the leather chairs. Nelson sat catty-cornered to Longarm so they were talking across a space of a few feet.

Nelson said, “Water only, Mr. Long? Or Marshal Long, I should say. We have some fine twenty-year-old brandy. Some Madeira wine, if you care for that. And we have beer. I almost forgot that.”

Longarm hated to drink with anyone he was fixing to have trouble with, but the thought of a good slug of brandy was tempting. He said, “Well, maybe I’ll have a little brandy along with that glass of water.”

Nelson nodded his head. Longarm looked around and saw that the servant had been standing around, waiting, listening. He disappeared instantly.

Nelson turned back around to Longarm.

“Well, now, Marshal. What can we do for you? What brings you this far out into the open country?”

Longarm was not ready to play his hand. He said, “Well, you don’t seem to think it’s far out in the country. You’ve chosen to set up out here in a place where you find not too many outfits like you’ve got.”

Nelson shrugged. “Oh, I guess you can say that my brothers and I are eccentric in the sense that while we’re not hermits, we do like our privacy. It also gives us the feeling of openness that we once knew in South Africa struggling to make our way in life.”

Longarm took a look around at the wood-paneled room with its high-beamed ceiling. He said, “Well, it appears that you’ve made your way in life. Quite a long way. I don’t reckon you’ve put a spread like this together on a storekeeper’s wages.”

Nelson laughed heartily. “No, we managed to get fortunate in South Africa and make a little find in the gold fields.”

Longarm said, “I’m kind of confused, Mr. Nelson. This says White’s Ranch, but your name is Nelson. Why would that be?”

Asher Nelson’s face was lined, but it was broad and friendly-looking, with gray-blue eyes. The wrinkles crinkled and the eyes smiled as he said, “Well, I suppose it’s sort of a sentimental gesture on our part. We had a partner by the name of Josh White. It was Josh who actually turned the spade in the earth that led us to the find. So, in his memory, we’ve chosen to name this place after him. We also own a hotel in the town of Santa Rosa. We named that after him also.”

“in his memory?”

Asher Nelson nodded. “Yes. Unfortunately, Josh didn’t make it out with us. We buried him in the mine when we closed it.”

“Too bad he didn’t get to share in the wealth.”

Nelson shrugged. “Well, everything doesn’t always come out in the way one would like it to, does it, Marshal?”

Longarm looked again at the rack of rifles. “Ya’ll are pretty well armed here.”

“Oh, reminders of the past. We used to like to hunt game in Africa. Possibly you noticed some game in our pastures that you might not have seen before?”

“Not outside of a circus. You haven’t got an elephant around here, have you?”

Nelson slapped his knee. “Funny you should have mentioned that. We have two. We get quite a bit of use out of them around here. They’re working elephants. As a matter Of fact, they’re from India. We toured quite a bit of that country for a while. The Indian elephant is the working elephant. A lot of people don’t know that they are different from their African cousin.”

Longarm said, “An elephant is an elephant to me.”

Nelson looked up and said, “Ah, here are our drinks.”

Longarm took the water in one hand and the brandy in the other. Nelson was having brandy. He lifted his glass and said, “Well, here’s to good fortune, Marshal.”

Longarm lifted his glass. “Luck,” he said.

They both drank, and then Longarm set his brandy glass at his feet and took a drink of water. He set that down and then reached in his back pocket and pulled out the poster. It was still folded, so it looked like any other piece of paper. He said, “Mr. Nelson, where are your two brothers?”

Asher Nelson looked to his left. “Oh, they’re about the place somewhere. I’m sure they will have been told by now that we have a guest and they’ll come straightaway. Could you tell me your business, Marshal? Or would that be prying?”

Longarm glanced over at the gun rack that took over the wall. He said, “I don’t reckon I’ve seen quite as many rifles, Mr. Nelson, outside of an infantry regiment. I don’t believe they had as high-caliber rifles as those you’ve got over there. Any reason?”

Nelson glanced back toward the rack as if to make sure he knew what Longarm was talking about. “Oh, our arsenal. Well, my brothers and myself developed a passion for big-game hunting, first in Africa and then when we traveled the world. We’ve got most of the major trophies. Whenever you like, I’ll show you our trophy room. In fact, it was the search of a trophy head that brought us to this part of the country. We were after the bighorn sheep, which is found only in the mountains of New Mexico. Once we were here, we recognized that this flat country looked so very much like the Transvaal in South Africa. And being kind of private and hermit-like”—Nelson gave a little laugh—“by nature, we thought this might be an ideal place to settle. It’s within reach of a railroad and we can get to where we need via the rail. Ship out of New Orleans or out of Galveston in Texas or out of any of the ports in the east. So you might say that the rifles represent our greatest love, which is big-game hunting.”

Longarm said, narrowing his eyes, “You say you’ve got most of the big-game trophies. What are you missing?”

Nelson shrugged. “Oh, nothing of considerable value. Just little chinks here and there left to fill in. Perhaps we will have to make a trip to Australia someday to find what we seek. Perhaps even another trip back to the Himalayas.”

Longarm thought a moment. He slowly unfolded the paper. “Makes me very curious, you talking about hunting. I’m wondering if what I’m holding right here might not be a hunting permit.” With that, Longarm reached forward and placed the poster on the low table in front of Asher Nelson. “Is this your work, Mr. Nelson?”

Asher Nelson glanced down at the poster. He seemed genuinely surprised. “Why, that’s your name, Marshal. Has someone been playing a joke on you?” He laughed slightly. “The idea of putting out a wanted poster on a United States Marshal is a rather curious prank, wouldn’t you say?”

Longarm said in an even voice, “I’m not viewing it as a prank. I’m viewing it as an accessory to attempted murder.”

Nelson took a drink. “Oh, surely not. Anyone seeing this could only think it was some trickster up to a prank.”

Longarm tapped the bottom of the poster with his fingernail. “Did you see this part here where it says to apply to the Nelsons from Santa Rosa, New Mexico?”

Asher Nelson leaned forward, his face looking disturbed. “Why, no. My heavens, it does say that. What in the world? Marshal, this is most disturbing.” He looked over at Longarm. “So that’s your business here, to find out if we’ve had a hand in this. Well, I can certainly assure you that we haven’t.”

“Would you care to know where I found this notice?”

Nelson nodded. “Yes, I would.”

“In my room, in your hotel, in Santa Rosa.”

Asher Nelson looked even more disturbed. He said, “I can’t imagine such a thing. I … I’m dumbfounded. I don’t know how to reply to you, Marshal. It must have been the biggest coincidence in the world.”

Longarm said, speaking without sure knowledge of what he was saying, “Well, I don’t think it could be that big of a coincidence, Mr. Nelson, since there’s one in every room of your hotel.”

Nelson stood up as if to walk around the room. Then he sat back down. “I find that hard to believe, Marshal. This must have just happened in the last few days.”

Longarm shook his head. “I’m afraid not. We’ve had word that this has been going on for anywhere from ten days to two weeks. This didn’t just start happening in the past few days. This is what brought me down here and it took me more than a few days to get me down here. And you claim to not know anything about this matter?”

Asher Nelson gave him a frank look. He said, “Marshal, why would anyone be such a damned fool as to put up a wanted poster for a United States marshal and put their own name to it? The consequences should be obvious. A United States marshal would be sitting right where you are, just as you are. Of course, I wouldn’t do such a thing.”

“How about your brothers?”

“My brothers are of the same mind as I am in most everything. Neither one of them would be foolish enough to do anything this haphazard or stupid. Marshal, you’ve got to understand that we are men who have led rough lives in rough country and we don’t take chances. This would be taking a chance. Frank and Claude are serious-minded men. None of us would pull a stunt like this—and a stunt is all I can call it.”

Longarm sat back and looked at the man. He didn’t know what to think. Asher Nelson sounded as sincere as a man could sound. Yet there were two facts: the poster and the disappearance of Ross Henderson. But more than that, there was the attitude of the sheriff, the mayor, and the deputy sheriff. There was the odd hotel. There was this very unlikely palace in the middle of nowhere. These were not sensible and ordinary things that sensible and ordinary men did.

Longarm said, “Who do you suppose would have put your name on these posters? Do you have enemies who would have attempted to bring the law down on you?”

Asher Nelson shrugged. “I have no way of answering that, Marshal Long. Every man has enemies, and I’m sure that my brothers and I have made our share through the years, although I don’t know of any in this part of the country. We have benefited the town, I’m certain, with our money.” He shrugged. “Perhaps someone did it out of jealousy. I have no way of knowing. But I hope that you don’t think that I myself or my brothers would be stupid enough to put our names to such a poster and not expect some very serious consequences from the United States Marshal Service.”

Longarm said, “Does my nickname mean anything to you?”

Asher Nelson looked down at the poster. “Longarm? Where it says Deputy United States Marshal Custis “Longarm’ Long? Longarm? Is that the nickname you’re referring to?”

“Yes.”

Asher Nelson smiled slightly and shook his head. “I’M sorry if it offends you, but no, Marshal. Or should I say Deputy? Perhaps Deputy is more correct?”

Longarm said, “That is correct.”

“Well, Deputy Long, I hope you’re not offended, but no, the nickname doesn’t mean anything to me.”

Longarm finished his brandy, watching the man over the brim of his glass. He said, “Well, then let me ask you another question.”

Nelson motioned with his hand. “Before that, let me get your glass refilled.”

Longarm shook his head. “Not just yet.” But the servant was already coming forward with the bottle. Longarm waited until the man had splashed a generous portion into his glass and the same into Mr. Nelson’s.

Asher Nelson looked at Longarm. He said, “And what was the other question, Deputy Long?”

“We sent a young deputy down here,” said Longarm, “a few days ago to investigate this matter. He’s disappeared. I wonder if he might have paid a call on you. His name was Ross Henderson.”

Asher Nelson shook his head slowly from side to side. “No, there’s been no one here by that name, and we’d certainly remember if we’d had a visit from a deputy United States marshal, just as we’ll remember your visit.”

“You haven’t seen hide nor hair of a tall young man with blond hair?”

Asher Nelson shook his head again. “No, I wish I could help you, Marshal.” He held his hands out, palms upward. “This is most distressing. This whole affair has gone beyond the point of a joke. Someone has caused your service a great deal of time and trouble.”

Longarm said evenly, “It may have done more than that if I don’t …”

He stopped. Two men had come into the room from the back. They were dressed approximately the same as Asher, but were wearing different-colored shirts. They were all pretty much alike. All of them appeared to be in their forties, about a year or so apart in age. They were all tall, spare, and healthy-looking. Asher Nelson stood up, as did Longarm.

Asher said, “Here’re my brothers now. Maybe they know something. Let me introduce you to them.”

There was no doubting the family resemblance. In fact, there seemed to be very little difference in their ages. Longarm chalked that up to the lives they had led, hard lives in the outdoors. The introductions were made and the other two brothers, Claude and Frank, sat down in the circle of divans and chairs around the low table. They too sent for brandy, and the mozzo, the servant, brought a plate of small sausages that Longarm soon discovered were flavored with jalapeno peppers.

Longarm went over the same ground with Claude and Frank as he had with Asher, and their responses were very much like their brother’s. It all seemed so plausible, the way they reacted and their responses. It also, to Longarm’s ears, sounded very pat. He had a feeling of uneasiness, but he couldn’t put his finger on just why. They repeated over and over that they had never caught sight of anyone answering the description of Ross Henderson, and certainly he had never come to their door.

Claude, who seemed to be the older and perhaps the slimmer of the three, said, “Deputy Long, is there any chance that he may have gotten lost out yonder?” He made a waving motion toward the desolate country that surrounded them. “That’s some very big country out there with very few landmarks. He could have missed us, if he indeed was heading this way, and once you’re lost in this desert, it’s very difficult to find your way back.” He glanced at his brothers. “I think Asher and Frank can tell you that.”

Asher and Frank smiled ruefully. They said, almost at the same time, “I hope we don’t have to tell …” Then they stopped and looked at each other. Asher finished. He said, “I hope Claude doesn’t expect us to tell that story on ourselves.”

“What story?” Longarm said.

Asher said, still smiling ruefully, “We on occasion, to keep ourselves honed, you might say, track each other. I set out as the hound and Frank followed as the hunter. Unfortunately, we both wound up lost. And Claude found us the next morning, very dry, very hungry, and very ashamed.”

Longarm smiled, but it was a duty smile. He had been listening to their voices. They didn’t have any accent, certainly not a Southwestern accent, nor did they have the Yankee accent he had heard on many occasions. They spoke very well in brisk, clipped words. He supposed it was a result of all their travels. But he was determined that the interview was going to produce some results. Knowing he was entering dangerous ground, but also having carefully noticed that none of the three seemed armed, he said, “One thing bothers me, gentlemen, and I’d like you to explain it to me.”

Asher, who seemed to be the leader, said, “And what would that be?”

Longarm looked from one to the other. He said, “I had to beat it out of the sheriff that he had sent Ross Henderson in this direction. At first, he denied having ever seen or heard from him. But we had a telegram from Henderson saying that there was a Nelson family living here, and he also added in the telegram to be careful of the local law. I was. I was very careful. I think the sheriff wasn’t careful enough. He tried to lie to me. Now, would you like to tell me why the sheriff would lie to me about you? Especially when it was a missing deputy U.S. marshal that we were talking about?”

The men glanced at each other. Asher ran a hand over his short-cropped hair. He said, “Well, Deputy Long, I’m sure you understand how the world works. We put quite a bit of money into the community of Santa Rosa. It wasn’t a very thriving place before we arrived. The people there know that we are very protective of our privacy, and that includes the sheriff. I’m not going to insult your intelligence by saying that the sheriff is on our payroll. He’s not, but he does receive gifts from us from time to time. I would imagine that he was motivated to lie to you to protect our privacy and also to protect those little gifts he receives.”

Longarm said slowly, “Uh-huh, yeah. I guess maybe that could be the case. At least it sounds all right.”

Asher spread his hands. “Why would we lie to you about one of your colleagues?”

Longarm said bluntly, “Why would anyone put up a poster offering ten thousand dollars for my capture and delivery to the Nelsons?”

They all three shook their heads. Frank said, “Marshal, we all wish we could shed some light on this unfortunate affair, but we all have told you everything we know.”

Longarm said, “Well, maybe so and maybe not. I ain’t saying you haven’t told me everything you think you know. I just ain’t sure that you might not know some things you don’t know you know.”

Somewhere in the house, a big clock tolled four times. Longarm was surprised that it had grown so late in the day. Asher Nelson stood up and said, “Deputy Long, my brothers and I have some unfinished work. I hope that you’ll excuse us for the time being. Manuel”—he nodded his head toward the servant in the starched white coat—“will show you to your room. We’ll have a chance to talk later.”

“Show me to my room? What are you talking about?”

Asher said, “Well, surely, Deputy Long, you’re not planning on riding back to town this late.”

Longarm thought quickly about the opportunity to be in the house and look around the grounds. He said, “Well, if you’re offering hospitality, I’m not going to be the one to turn it down.”

Asher Nelson said, “That’s fine, Deputy Marshal. We’ll eat dinner at six. I hope you have a good appetite. Perhaps afterwards we can play some four-handed poker. I know that’s a miserable game, but at least it’s better than three-handed.” He smiled. “And besides, you’ll be fresh meat for us.”

Longarm said, “I don’t generally care to play poker against men that have got that much bigger a wallet than I do.”

Asher Nelson smiled. “Oh, we’ll keep the stakes to everyone’s liking. Now, if you’ll go along with Manuel, he’ll see that you’re fixed up. Have a bath if you like. We have running water in the house.”

“I need to see to my horse.”

Claude Nelson said, “Not to worry about that, Deputy Long. He’s already in the barn, eating oats.”

Longarm shrugged. “Well, I reckon I’ll go to my room, as you called it, and knock a little of this travel dust off of me. I look forward to spending the night with you folks. I am much obliged. I hadn’t meant to tread on your hospitality when I came this way.”

Asher said, with what sounded like real sincerity, “Oh, you don’t know how lucky we are, Deputy Long. We don’t get as much company out here as we like. Your presence is very welcome. I’m sure you have many, many good stories to tell about your days as a marshal in this rough-and-ready country. We look forward to hearing them.”

Longarm gave them a half-amused look. “Oh, Mr. Nelson, I don’t reckon I could tell you any stories about the rough and ready that you haven’t already lived.”

He sat on the side of the bed in the big, whitewashed, spacious room with a little alcove off to one side that contained a tub of water and a wash basin with a faucet that ran either hot or cold water through it. It was better than any hotel he had ever seen. But then, he reckoned, you could have just about anything you wanted to pay for.

The servant had brought up his saddlebags, so he was able to take a drink of his own whiskey and have a change of shirts for after his bath. He hadn’t brought a razor, but one had been made available to him, along with a shaving brush and some special soap. It was pretty handy to be rich.

Still, he had a lot of questions in his mind, especially about young Henderson. It was possible, he supposed, that the man had gotten lost in the desolate country, but Longarm doubted it. You didn’t get to be a deputy United States marshal by not being able to find your way around. Something could have happened to him. He could have been bushwhacked by a gang of Mexican banditos on a rampage across the border. He could have had trouble with his horse. He could have been hurt if his horse had fallen.

There were several answers to his disappearance, but all Longarm could keep going back to was the reluctance of anyone in town to give him information about Ross Henderson and the fact that he’d been bound for the Nelsons’ ranch. There was something about the three brothers that worried Longarm, but it wasn’t anything he could put his finger on. By all appearances they were what they said they were, three men who had taken their chances against nature and had won. They were sound of wind and heart, as you said about a good horse, and they looked like they had done their share of hard work in their days. Each one of them was hard-handed and square-shouldered and flat-bellied. They had not inherited their money, they had worked for it. But still, there was a strangeness about the whole operation that worried Longarm.

Finally, he finished his Maryland whiskey, got up, took a bath, put on his clean shirt, and then made ready to go downstairs. It was a quarter to six by his watch. He sure hoped they didn’t expect him to have brought any better clothes with him, but then, they didn’t look like the type that was going to show up for dinner wearing a top hat and a tie either.

For dinner, he had probably the best steak he had ever eaten. It was Claude Nelson who explained that their beef-stock was never put out to pasture on grass. He explained, “Our slaughter animals are kept in a pen and fed the highest-grade alfalfa hay and the highest-grade oats and wheat that we can grow. We can put more tender meat on a beef than anybody anywhere. You can’t get that good a steak in Kansas City.”

Longarm was forced to agree. He was also surprised at the baked potatoes, the sliced tomato, and the fresh green beans. He didn’t know that potatoes could be grown in New Mexico.

Again, it was Claude who answered him, since it was Claude that seemed to be in charge of their ranching operation. He said, “No, you couldn’t grow potatoes in that sand and dust out yonder.” He waved his hand. “But we’ve got about a four-acre vegetable garden where we grow all our own fresh produce. We hauled in over one hundred fifty wagon loads of topsoil from the Sangria de Cristo foothills and had it mixed in. It’s as rich a loam as you could want.”

Frank Nelson said, smiling slightly, “Brother Claude is a farmer at heart, I sometimes think. But even when we were in Africa, he could grow stuff to eat out of rock, it seemed.”

Longarm said, “Yeah, but it don’t hurt to be rich. Not many people could afford to haul in that much topsoil. It must make these potatoes worth about two dollars apiece.”

Asher Nelson said, “Deputy Long, it might surprise you to know that being rich isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be.”

Frank Nelson said, “It can be tiring, knowing that you can have anything you want. After a while, there’s not much you do want.”

Claude Nelson said, “It takes a lot of the thrill out of life.”

Asher Nelson looked at Longarm and smiled faintly. He said, “This might be difficult to understand, Deputy Long. But money won’t buy everything. You have to have a lot of it before you understand that. After a time, some of the thrill is gone and you have to search for your thrills. Sometimes they get more and more difficult to find.” He smiled a little broader. “I hope you will remember what I just said.”

Longarm looked back at him. “Should I have occasion to remember that?”

Asher Nelson shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe you will and maybe you won’t.”

After dinner, they retired into a room with a billiard table, a poker table, and a small bar. It was almost as if the Nelsons had created their own saloon in their own house. Another servant was behind the bar, and another one stood ready to bring them drinks. Longarm only had about three hundred dollars on him, and he didn’t intend on risking more than two hundred dollars of that, especially not playing men as rich as this. They finally settled on a game of dollar-ante, pot limit, with no bet being over twenty dollars.

The Nelsons were hard, ruthless poker players, and Longarm was hard pressed to keep up with them. He knew that the stakes probably meant nothing to them in terms of money, but they played as hard for each pot as if it were a pile of nuggets. In the end, Longarm managed to win some eighty or a hundred dollars. It was closing in on midnight, and he felt very sleepy. Much more sleepy than usual. He normally didn’t get tired or drowsy during a poker game, but as the clock far off somewhere in the house gonged off twelve strokes, he could hardly keep his eyes open. He apologized to his hosts for quitting on them so early.

He said, “I don’t know what’s the matter with me. It must be this high-priced brandy, but I’m about to go to sleep sitting here. I hate to break the game up, but it’s either that or fall out of this chair.”

They assured him they all understood. Claude said, “You had a hard ride in the hot sun today and that will get to anybody. Likely, you didn’t get much sleep the night before.”

That hadn’t been exactly true, and Longarm had spent plenty of time in the hot desert on much longer rides than the one he had made that day. But he was unaccountably drowsy. Asher Nelson accompanied him to the stairs and halfway down the long hall on the second floor to his room, where he bade him good night. Longarm went in, pushing the door closed behind himself. He sat down on the bed, took off his boots, and yawned. He thought about getting out his roll, counting his money, and seeing how he had done in the game, but it just didn’t seem worth the effort. It was all he could do to get his shirt off, shuck his pants, pull the covers back, and slip into bed. He did manage to slip his six-gun in under his pillow, but he didn’t bother with a good-night drink or a cheroot like he normally did. It was his custom to sit on the side of the bed, think over the day’s happenings, and analyze what he wanted to do the next day. This night, all he wanted to do was go to sleep.

Chapter 6

He awoke with someone shaking him by the shoulder. His eyes flew open, startled. It was broad daylight in the room, sunlight streaming through the big windows. For a second, his vision was blurred, but then it cleared and he could see the three brothers arranged at the end of his bed. He blinked for a moment and said, “What the hell?”

Asher was in the middle, flanked by Claude and Frank. Asher said, “It’s time to get up, United States Deputy Marshal Custis Long, better known as Longarm.”

Longarm started to sit up. He winced as a pain ran through his head. “What the hell are ya’ll doing in here in my bedroom?”

Asher smiled. “We’ve come to take you to breakfast, Marshal Long. Don’t you think you’ve slept a little late? It’s going on ten o’clock.”

Longarm blinked again. The room wanted to spin and swim, and he had to shake his head to clear his vision. He suddenly noticed that Asher was holding a short 12-gauge shotgun and that his brothers were both holding revolvers down by their sides. He stared in amazement. He said, “What the hell is going on here?”

Asher smiled again. “All that will become clear enough, Deputy Long. Why don’t you get up and put your britches on and come along with us?”

Longarm shook his head, again and again, trying to clear it. It was suddenly beginning to dawn on him that something was wrong—very, very wrong. So far as he remembered, he had never slept until ten in the morning in his life, not without a very good reason. He stared at the gun in Asher’s hands and felt the fuzziness in his head. He said, “Are you holding a gun on me, Mr. Nelson?”

Asher Nelson shrugged. “I have a shotgun in my hand, if that’s what you mean, Deputy Long, but why argue the issue now? Why not get your clothes on and come on down and have some breakfast and some coffee? You’ll feel so much better.”

The cobwebs were beginning to clear. Longarm was remembering how suddenly sleepy he’d felt the night before. He said, “You sonofabitches put something in my drink, didn’t you?”

Claude, who seemed the less sinister of the three, grinned boyishly. “Yeah, we figured you needed a good night’s sleep after all the work and trouble that you’ve gone through, so we gave you a little sleeping powder in that last drink. It took a mighty long while to work. I’ve got to hand it to you, Deputy Long. Normally, it should have knocked you out and we would have had to carry you to bed. As it was, I think you won two hands when you should have been asleep.”

Asher Nelson chuckled. “You’re a fair poker hand, Deputy Long. I wouldn’t say that I’d care to play you for real stakes.”

“So you are the sonofabitches that put out the posters, aren’t you?” Longarm said.

Asher said impatiently, “Marshal, don’t be difficult. Get out of bed and get dressed. Go downstairs and we’ll be delighted to answer any of your questions. But first, let’s get out of here. You need to get some coffee and some food down you and let that drug wear off. We’ve got some serious talking to do and we know that you have a head full of mush right now.”

Longarm couldn’t disagree with them about that. Even though there were a dozen questions in his mind and a half-dozen emotions racing through his breast, he thought it best to put the whole lot on the shelf until some of the fog went away. It wasn’t just the fog. He had a headache that felt like it was splitting his head in two. He swung around on the bed and put his legs over. With a stray eye, he glanced to see where his holster was and peeked toward his pillow, thinking maybe to see the butt end of his revolver.

Asher Nelson said, “Don’t be looking for any weapons, Deputy Long. You won’t find any. We have your revolver and your derringer and your spare revolver and your rifle out of your saddle boot. All of those have been carefully put away. The sleeping powder we gave you left us ample time to be ready for you when you came awake. You know the old saying about it being best to let sleeping tigers lie, so the best thing you can do is to put on your clothes and go downstairs and get some coffee and some food. You’ll feel a lot better, and then we can talk.”

Longarm sat there on the side of the bed, naked. He paid no attention to Asher. Instead, he reached over and grabbed his bottle of Maryland whiskey by the neck, pulled the plug, and then took a long drink. He let it settle, and then he had another.

He looked around at Asher. He said, “You sonsofbitches gave me a headache with that shit you put in my drink. I ain’t moving until it subsides a little.”

Asher shrugged. “We’re in no hurry. Nothing much is going to happen until this afternoon.”

Longarm said, “Is that right? And what have you decided is going to happen this afternoon?”

Claude Nelson said, “Marshal, really. Cooperate a little, won’t you?

Get yourself dressed, man. You’re sitting there naked. That isn’t even decent.”

Longarm said slowly, his tongue feeling thick, “Go to hell, Claude. Why the fuck don’t you go out and grow some potatoes?”

In the end, however, his headache abated enough that he grudgingly got into his clothes, pulling on his boots. He put his hands in his pockets and discovered that they had emptied even those. He said, “On top of being no-good, low-down sonofabitches, you’re thieves on top of that.”

Asher Nelson said coldly, “No one has stolen your money, Marshal Long. You can have that and any amount you name should you successfully leave this ranch.”

Longarm swung his head around and gave the man a harsh look. “What the hell is that supposed to mean, mister?”

Asher motioned with his shotgun. “Walk ahead, please. We have great respect for you, Marshal. You will notice that none of us is going to allow you within ten feet. Another thing I might add, this shotgun is loaded with bird shot. I won’t shoot you to kill you, but I will shoot you to cripple you. If you make me, if you rush me, I’ll shoot you in the foot. It’ll stop you, but it will be very painful. Do you understand? Both of my brothers are carrying .32-caliber revolvers and they’ll shoot you in the legs. So proceed ahead and we will follow at a respectful distance. And I mean that truly, Marshal, a respectful distance. If you live up to your reputation, we can’t be too careful.”

Longarm went out of the room, down the curving stairs, and into the big room. They directed him into the dining room where they had eaten the night before, and bade him to sit down. Asher clapped his hands. In a moment, the servant, Manuel, appeared with a steaming cup of coffee and a platter of ham and eggs and biscuits.

Longarm still felt nauseous from the effect of the drug, but he was also ravenous. He took a few sips of the coffee and felt his head beginning to clear a little. But he knew it was still not time to ask the questions that were racing through his mind. He didn’t know what was going on, but at least he knew one thing for certain now. He had come to the right place.

They stayed in a triangular covering pattern around him and just as Asher had said, none of them were within less than ten feet. He couldn’t rush one without the other two having an easy shot at him. It was clear that they knew what they were doing. Who else would have thought to have informed him that he was using bird shot in the shotgun and that there would be no easy way out such as catching a load of buckshot in the belly. Of course, they didn’t know their man if they thought he had any intention of making it easy for them. He was going to make it so hard, they were going to wish they had never seen or heard of him. They weren’t merely playing with guns, they were playing with danger. Guns and danger were his business. Time would tell who would win such a game—three amateurs or one professional.

No one spoke during his meal. Finally, he pushed his plate back, satisfied, and then motioned for a refill of his coffee and called for the decanter of brandy. He poured a little in his cup, and then pulled out a cheroot and lit it. He sat, sipping at the coffee and smoking.

Behind him, Asher lounged against the side table with the shotgun in his hand. He said to the back of Longarm’s head, “Are you ready now, Marshal, to find out the details of what is to come?”

Longarm blew smoke in the direction of Claude, who was at the far end of the long table. He said, “No, Mr. Nelson. I’m not particularly anxious to hear the details about anything from you. I am, however, anxious for you to tell me what you have done to Deputy Marshal Ross Henderson.”

Frank Nelson said, “Marshal Long, as used to you are to giving orders, I fear that it is going to come as a shock to you to realize that you are in a helpless situation. You either follow some rules we are going to lay down or I fear that you’re going to regret it.”

Longarm gave him a bare glance. He said, “I don’t know what you boys are playing at, but I got a pretty good idea who is going to be doing the regretting.”

From behind Longarm, Asher Nelson said, “Let me explain about us, Marshal. The only activity that we have indulged in since we got so rich from all that gold has been big-game hunting. As I’ve told you before, we have taken every species that we could find. We have in this house a trophy room that we will show you that contains some of the trophies we’ve mounted. I must try and make you understand. When you are in the Transvaal, the roughest country God has ever made, and you are almost at the end of your rope, almost out of food, almost out of water, when your strength comes from you know not where, and then that last spade full of dirt gets turned and you’ve struck the bonanza—Marshal, after that, everything else pales by comparison. Everything else becomes a bore. The most beautiful women, the finest wine, the biggest house, everything else is simply a bore. The only thrills we could find are in the thrills of the chase of exotic game. But now we have run out.”

Longarm turned his head slowly. He said, “You aren’t thinking about man-hunting, are you?”

Asher shook his head quickly. He said, “Oh, no. We’ve already done that, Marshal. Several times, as a matter of fact. We have imported several of the most feared banditos from Mexico—even gone down into the mountains of Mexico and hunted them. They were no match. It was child’s play. It was the simplest of games to outwit them. The tiger, the lion, even the crocodile is a more difficult prey than the men we hunted. We didn’t even bother to take souvenirs from them.”

Longarm sipped at his coffee. He said sarcastically, “Hell, that’s damned big of you.”

“You think we’re joking. You think this is some kind of game.”

“I think you’re crazy, that’s what I think. I don’t know what you plan to do with me, but whatever you plan, it ain’t going to work out the way you’ve planned it.”

“Well, Marshal, you represent the ultimate trophy. You do not know the respect we hold you in. For some five years, we’ve been hearing about the famous Longarm. That he was bullet-proof, that he couldn’t be outrun, he could not be out-shot, that you could not beat him with anything. You could give him a spoon and you could take a Winchester rifle, and he would hunt you down and have you for breakfast with that spoon. That’s all we’ve heard, over and over and over.”

Longarm’s head was clearing rapidly. He was almost himself again. A little chill of fear ran through him. He said, “So you put out the posters?”

Asher Nelson said, “That is correct.”

“You didn’t want me dead, you wanted me alive. The posters were bait. Correct?”

Asher Nelson walked around to where he could see Longarm’s face. He said, “That is correct.”

Longarm looked at Asher with narrow eyes. “You aren’t planning on hunting me, are you?”

Asher just looked at him through his gray-blue eyes. He nodded slowly. “Yes.”

Longarm said, “But you’ve already tried man-hunting. You didn’t care for it. It was too easy.”

Asher Nelson said, “Yes, but we never hunted a man-hunter. We think it will be quite different. We talked about this at great length. You would not believe the thought we put into how best to get you to exactly where you are now.”

Longarm shrugged. “Well, it worked, didn’t it?” He looked down at his coffee cup. “Let me ask you one question. You offered ten thousand dollars for me alive and a thousand dollars dead. What would have happened if somebody had plugged me and showed up here with a carcass?”

From down the table, Frank Nelson said, “We were betting on your ability, Marshal. Actually, that was a little test. We didn’t think anyone could take you or get you that easy where they would be willing to risk their life for one thousand dollars.”

“One thousand dollars is a lot of money to some people in this part of the country.”

Asher said, “It was well thought out, Marshal. If they could kill you for the thousand dollars, then you wouldn’t have been worth the hunt. As it turned out, you’ve proven us right in everything you did and in exactly the way you answered our bait.”

Longarm ran his hand through his hair. “Yeah, I reckon I snapped it up, didn’t I? Well, what’s the plan, gentlemen? Do I go loping off across the prairie? What do you have in mind?”

Asher Nelson said, “Oh, there’s no rush. Matters will not commence until four o’clock this afternoon.”

Longarm said, “You boys must think I’m a hell of a sap if you think I’m going to go for any of this.”

Asher shook his head. “No, indeed, Marshal. We do not think you’re any kind of a sap. You’ve noticed how careful we’ve been with you. Anyone else, we would have simply pulled guns on, disarmed them, and then locked them in a room until it was time to start proceedings. We didn’t think that would be cautious enough for you. We deemed it necessary to drug your drink so that we could make our preparations while you slept. Oh, believe me, Marshal, we have the greatest respect for you, just as we did for the lion, the tiger, the rhino, the caped buffalo, and some of the other great wild game that we have hunted.”

Longarm got out another cheroot and lit it. He was feeling pretty good now. He said, “You gentlemen might not have noticed that I am not a game animal and there are laws against this. You hunt me down and get rid of me, you’re going to have an awful lot of marshals descending on your heads.”

Asher Nelson said, “Let’s not discuss all that right now, Marshall Long. Let’s try and have a pleasant afternoon and get you ready for what is to come.”

By one o’clock, they all had moved to the sunken living room with the tiled floor, the leather couches and divans, the big overstuffed chairs, and the rack of high-powered rifles on the wall. Longarm was seated where he had been the day before, with a glass of whiskey and a glass of bourbon on the low table in front of him. He was smoking a cheroot. He said, “Now, ya’ll ain’t explained this foolishness to me yet, and I think you’re going to be wasting your breath if you do. If you think I’m going to go out that door and let you hunt me down like some mountain lion, you are crazy as hell. If you kill me, you’re going to have to kill me in cold blood.”

Asher was sitting diagonally across from him, as he had the day before. He shook his head. “No, I don’t think so, Marshal. I believe and my brothers believe that you will be more than willing to fall in with our contest—and a contest is what it is. It’s too serious to be a game. I would call it a contest of us against you, and I think the odds are about even.”

Longarm gave him a look. “Three against one? You call that even odds?

This is your country. You know every foot of it and you call that even odds?

I’m a stranger here.” He jerked his head toward the rack of high-powered rifles. “Are you going to give me one of those with a telescopic sight? Are you going to give me a pocketful of cartridges and one of them big rifles that will shoot a half mile with one of them spyglasses on it that you can see a half mile with? I don’t think so. You want me to go out and play rabbit for you? Well, I ain’t going to do that.”

Asher said, “You’ve got us all wrong, Marshal. We don’t want a shooting gallery. Those banditos, those bandits, those outlaws who thought they were so tough, they ended up being a shooting gallery because they didn’t know how to think. We know that you are a thinking prey, that you will be a very dangerous type of game to hunt. We have never cared to hunt anything where there is not a risk involved, and we realize that the risk will be tremendous with you.”

Longarm said, “Yeah, you might burn yourself by taking the hull out of one of those high-power rifles which would have enough powder in it to send a half-pound slug a mile and a half.”

Asher shook his head. “We’re not going to use any high-caliber rifles. In fact, we’re not going to use any rifles at all. We will be equipped with small-caliber revolvers, .38-caliber—just what my brothers are holding now.”

“And what do I get? Do I get a .38-caliber revolver?”

Asher shook his head again slowly and smiled. “No, I’m afraid not. That would tip the odds too far the other way. I don’t believe myself or my brothers would be successful against you if you had a firearm in your hand. I think we’d be in the shooting gallery.”

“What am I supposed to do? Chuck rocks?”

“You’ll be armed with a machete,” Asher said. “It’s a yard-long knife that the Mexicans use. It’s almost a sword.”

Longarm said irritably, “I know what a machete is, damn it. Where the hell do you think I’ve been? New York City?”

“You’ll be armed with a machete, you’ll be given a three-hour lead, you’ll have sufficient water and food-“

Longarm broke in before he could say anything else. “The one thing you keep overlooking, Mr. Nelson, is that I have no reason to do this. It sounds to me that all the fun is going to be on your side. I ain’t looking for no new thrills. I get to play “You got a gun and I got a gun and let’s see who’s best’ too many times. My nerves are worn nearly to a frazzle from playing that game. I don’t care for it. This ain’t fun to me. This is deadly serious, and you don’t know what you’re getting into playing it with me. No, I ain’t going to go out there and play your rabbit. I don’t care if you’re only carrying .38-caliber revolvers. You’re on your home territory and eventually you’ll run me down. I cannot get close enough to you with a machete to keep you from killing me with your .38, so from all accounts to me, it looks like to me I’m going to get killed. So if you’re going to kill me, I’m going to make you murder me. I’m going to sit right here in this damned chair and you’re going to have to shoot me, and then you’ll have murdered a United States deputy marshal and you’ll have to bear the consequences.”

Asher Nelson said, “No, Marshal Long, you will take part in the contest. You will be quarry in the hunt.”

“What makes you so damned sure of that?”