Longarm and the Deadly Prisoner

“I had a few head of cattle and sheep but the wolves, mountain lions, and grizzlies got every last damn one of ‘em,” the young man said, his smile dying.”

“That’s why you need a better rifle.”

“I expect so.” He patted the rifle. “This old flintlock, which I got for only three dollars, makes a Hell of a bang when I put in a double load of powder. I tell you, it sure scares off a bear, a mountain lion, or a coyote, but after a while, they come right back and kill my livestock.”

Longarm looked up at the cabin and, from what he could see through the doorway, it looked nearly empty. “Are you living all alone here?”

“Yes,” the man said with a defeated shrug of his thin shoulders. “Once, I had a wife here with me. Clara Belle was real pretty too. But when I lost the stock, she ran off with a cowboy that was passin’ through and heading for Utah. I miss her a lot. We planted that corn together and dug a well. Early this year, the damned well went dry.”

“I could guess that much. So, if the well went dry and your livestock were all slaughtered by predators, then why don’t you just pack up and leave?” Longarm asked. “There’s no future here for someone like YOU.”

The young man finally put his rifle down. He toed the earth and then he stuck his hand out. “My name is Bert. Bert Hollingsworth.”

“Mine is Custis. Custis Long. So, Bert, since this is such hard times, why don’t you leave?”

“Can I trust you to keep a secret?”

“Sure.”

“There’s gold in these hills,” Bert confessed. “I wouldn’t tell anybody but… but since You’re a marshal, I guess it’s safe.”

“Yeah,” Longarm said, “it’s safe. I have no interest in working another gold mine.”

A strange light crept into Bert’s eyes. Longarm recognized it because he’d seen it all too often among lonely prospectors and miners. It was a light caused by a fever—gold fever.

“Well,” Bert whispered, as if someone could be overhearing them out in these lonely mountains, “the truth of it is, I found a vein of pure quartz just up the hill a ways and into the timber.”

Longarm wasn’t impressed. “For a fact?”

“Yep!”

“Well,” Longarm said, not wanting to dampen the young man’s enthusiasm but not wanting him to be living a poor man’s fantasy, “while even I know that gold is often found among quartz deposits, you have to understand that there’s certainly no guarantee of that happening.”

“Yeah, but I found some gold in that quartz!”

Longarm smiled with relief because this young man definitely needed some help. “Good for you!”

The kid was getting all excited. “Marshal Long, do you want to see it?”

“I need to water these horses and get that shoe tacked on tight,” Longarm said. “Then, if it wouldn’t take much time, I’d be happy to see it.”

“Sure, Marshal. There’s a little spring up behind the cabin. I use a couple of old tin buckets to haul water down to my livestock and for myself.”

“I’ll help you,” Longarm offered.

“No need,” Bert assured him. “I got two buckets and two good hands, so there’s no sense of you hikin’ up there too.”

“That suits me fine.”

Bert hurried away, and soon reappeared with two sloshing buckets of water. As soon as Longarm’s wheel horses had drunk, Bert hurried back up behind the cabin and returned with two more. The lead horses emptied those in just a few minutes.

“They’re pretty damned thirsty, ain’t they,” Bert said, his forehead covered with sweat. “Looks like I’d better get a few more bucketsful.”

“Maybe so,” Longarm said, remembering that he was paying this man a dollar for this spring water.

“Say, Marshal,” Bert said just as he was about to head back up the Mountainside, “what’s that awful smell comin’from inside the wagon?”

It was the dead men, but Longarm decided not to spook Bert, so he hedged and said, “Ah … medicines. That’s what it must be—medicines left inside from the fella who owned it before me.”

“Huh.” Bert wrinkled his nose. “Rotten-smellin’ medicine, if you ask me. How’d a medicine peddler ever sell anything that smells so ripe?”

“Beats me,” Longarm said, deciding he should probably get his horses watered and that loose shoe fixed before he moved on to the next order of business, that being the burial of the four dead men in his wagon.

When Bert shuffled back up the hill with his empty water buckets, Longarm went around to the back of the wagon and opened the door.

“Ahhh!” Ford Oakley shouted.

Longarm fell down with Oakley leaping at him with a knife clenched in his manacled fists. Ford landed on him, the pocket knife he’d taken from one of the corpses diving straight for Longarm’s throat. Longarm threw up his hand in an instinctive movement, and was lucky enough to catch the chain that linked the handcuffs.

“You sonofabitch!” Oakley grated, bearing down on the knife, which now shivered just inches above his throat. “You’re finished now!”

The two powerful men strained and grunted, and the point of the knife crept downward until it pricked his neck and brought a fresh trickle of blood.

“I’ll kill YOU!” Ford screamed. Longarm had to admit that Ford just might succeed. He was as strong as a horse even though he was badly battered and suffering from lack of food and water. In an act of desperation Longarm kicked his legs up, and managed to get his heels locked around Oakley’s hate-filled face. Using his powerful leg muscles, he bent back Oakley’s head and managed to push the knife upward until, at last, Oakley cursed and was toppled over backward.

Longarm jumped to his feet and scrambled away before the killer could recover and lunge at him with the knife again. He drew his gun and shouted, “Put it down!”

“No,” Oakley swore. “This time, you’ll have to take it from me, by Gawd!”

Longarm cocked the hammer of his gun, took aim on the man’s kneecap, and said, “Put it down or you’ll crawl up the gallows stairs. Your choice.”

Oakley’s face turned purple with rage, but he didn’t want his kneecap blown to smithereens, so he finally dropped the knife.

“Now,” Longarm ordered, “just move away. Nice and easy-“

“Hey!” Bert cried, dropping both buckets and staring. “What’s going on here!”

“Stay back,” Longarm ordered. “This man is my prisoner and he’s a killer.”

“Don’t listen to him, kid. I been wrongly accused. I heard you talking out here and I’m the real federal marshal. This man got the drop on me and took my gun and my badge. He killed a bunch of men and they’re all stuffed inside. One of ‘em is a deputy marshal.”

Bert bit his lower lip again. “Jeez,” he whispered, eyes shifting back and forth. “Is that true, Custis?”

“Hell, no! This is Ford Oakley and he’s wearing the handcuffs, not me. Have you ever heard of him?”

“Can’t say as I have.”

“Well,” Longarm said, “he’s cunning and I want you to stay out of harm’s way until I finish this business.”

Bert retreated, and Longarm returned all his attention to his prisoner. “All right, Oakley, lay down and stretch your hands above your head.”

“And if I don’t?”

“I’ll put a hole through your kneecap and then I’ll brain you again. Is that what you want?”

“Bastard!” Oakley spat as he knelt in the yard and then flopped forward, throwing his hands overhead.

Longarm put a knee to Oakley’s back and the barrel of his six-gun against the outlaw’s head. He looked over at Bert and said, “Do you have any rope? Good strong rope?”

“Yeah, but … but I need it!”

“So do I, dammit!” Longarm stormed. “Get the rope and I’ll pay you for that too.”

Bert hurried off, and Oakley turned his ugly face and said, “Maybe that fool really has struck gold, huh?”

“I sure as hell doubt it. Anyway, what business would that be of yours?”

“We could make a deal,” Oakley suggested. “We could kill the fool and get rich!”

“Shut up!”

But Oakley couldn’t shut up. “Listen, Marshal, if we don’t take his gold, then someone else sure as hell will. He’s a trusting fool and so we might as well …”

Longarm grabbed Oakley’s hair and yanked back his head until the man’s mouth was hanging open. “I don’t want to hear anything more, you understand?”

“Bastard!”

When Bert returned with the rope, Longarm bound the outlaw up like a mummy. Oakley cried, “I gotta eat and drink something, Marshal! Otherwise, I’m gonna die!”

“He does look pretty bad,” Bert said.

“So do we,” Longarm snapped. “All right, give me a dipper and I’ll give him some water.”

“I ain’t got a dipper.”

“Fine,” Longarm said, rolling the killer over onto his back and grabbing the bucket. “Open your mouth, Ford!”

Ford opened his mouth and Longarm slowly poured most of the bucket into the man’s face. Ford began to sputter and cough. He rolled over onto his belly and choked, “Gawddammit, you’re trying to drown me!”

Longarm took his own drink. He looked at the cabin and then said, “Bert, let’s get that shoe tacked on and then I have another proposition for you.”

Bert appeared shaken. “You’re sure that you’re the real marshal?”

“Of course, dammit!”

“Then what’s the proposition?”

Longarm saw no easy way to say it. “I want you to bury four men. They’re getting pretty ripe.”

Bert turned ashen. “I couldn’t do that!”

“Of course you can. You have a pick and a shovel, don’t you?”

“Yeah, but…”

“Bert, I’ll pay you real well.”

Bert gulped, his Adam’s apple bouncing up and down. “How … how much?”

“I’ll give you this medicine wagon.”

“What would I do with that!”

Longarm had already worked up his argument. “Well,” he began, “you’ll need a good wagon to haul your ore to the assayer’s office. I can see that your wagon has a broken axle. How are you going to transport all that gold and quartz to a stamping mill without a good, stout wagon like mine?”

Bert nodded. “I have been worried about that.”

“Well,” Longarm said, “now you have a solution. Your pair of Missouri mules will pull the wagon just fine. I’m telling you, for a couple of hours’work, you’ll get a good wagon.”

“Harness too?”

“Sure,” Longarm said. “But not the four horses. I’ve already promised them to a liveryman who saved my bacon back in Lone Pine.”

“I … I can’t touch the bodies,” Bert said, head wagging back and forth. “You’ll have to drive that wagon over to the graves and just dump ‘em in the holes I dig.”

Longarm tried to hide his exasperation. “I need to be on my way, Bert! I have to catch a train for Cheyenne and deliver this prisoner.”

Bert wrestled hard with his dilemma, but it was plain to see that he badly wanted the medicine wagon. “All right,” he said, “let’s tack on the shoe and you drive the wagon over to my cornfield. The corn crop is dying anyway so it’s already kind of like a cemetery. Besides, that’d be as good a place to bury them as any. It’s also got a real nice view with a good exposure to the morning sun.”

“I’m sure they’ll appreciate that, Bert.” Longarm shook his head, finding it difficult to believe this conversation. “That’s very thoughtful of you.”

“Well,” Bert admitted, “I’ve thought many a time since Clara Belle left that I wouldn’t mind being buried there myself.”

“You’re too young to be thinking about dying,” Longarm told the lonesome and troubled homesteader. “You just need to make a new start.”

“With all the gold I’m going to haul to Elko in that medicine wagon, I’ll be able to do that in grand style,” Bert said, perking up a little at the thought.

“That’s right,” Longarm said, “you will.”

“I’ll even make the four dead men grave markers,” Bert said. “Carve their names on a cross and everything … if you’ll throw in one of them extra Winchester rifles and shotguns I see resting up front in the wagon. With all my gold, I’m going to need something better than that old three-dollar flintlock to protect my interests.”

“That stands to reason,” Longarm said. “If you’ve got two old saddles to spare in that barn, then you’ve got yourself one Hell of a good deal.”

“I’ve got’em,” Bert said, looking quite pleased.

“Hey, kid!” Oakley called.

Bert twisted around. “Yeah?”

“You’d better dig your own damn grave!” Oakley hissed at the young man.

Bert paled, but Longarm quickly assured him, “Don’t worry, that man is not going to get away, and he’ll be resting in a Colorado grave within a few weeks.”

“I sure hope so,” Bert said, looking somewhat shaken. “He really seems to be an awful man.”

Bert went into his barn and got his hammer and some nails. It took him but a few minutes to tack on the loose shoe and check all the other horses’ feet. After that, he found a pick and a shovel before he hurried off to the clearing and began to dig the graves. The miserable cornfield was as rocky as flint, and it took Bert almost two hours of hard work to dig four graves. They weren’t deep, but they were sufficient. It was Longarm’s experience that a lot of good men and women often received a whole lot less of a grave.

“Dump’em in,” Bert said, turning his back on the bodies.

Longarm dragged the four bodies out of the wagon and rolled them into the graves. “So long, Deputy Trout,” he said. “I’ll notify Marshal Wheeler, and maybe he’ll be honorable enough to send your share of the reward to any of your next of kin.”

“What reward?” Bert asked suddenly.

“Never mind,” Longarm said. “Just cover ‘em up. I’ll unhitch these horses and saddle the lead pair. I need to get moving.”

“What’s your hurry, Marshal Long?”

Before Longarm could answer, Oakley shouted, “He’s in a big hurry because he knows that my men are coming and they’re going to torture you for helpin’him and then they’re going to set me free.”

Bert wiped his hand across his face. “Is that true?”

“No,” longarm said, “it is not. I gave his friends the slip way back in Gold Mountain.”

“You think you gave ‘em the slip!” Oakley crowed.

Bert began to shovel dirt in a hurry. “Maybe I’ll just cover these up and smooth things over so nobody will know about this burying business. I can do the grave markers later. No hurry, is there?”

“Nope,” Longarm said.

Longarm got the lead horses saddled, and then he needed Bert’s help to get the big outlaw on a horse.

“Don’t you even have time to come and look at my little gold mine?” Bert asked.

“I don’t think so,” Longarm said. “Besides, I’m not taking my eyes off my prisoner again.”

Bert nodded, looking very disappointed. “Well, at least let me show you a couple ore samples and then you can tell me how you think it’ll assay out.”

Longarm really didn’t want to be the one to tell this poor man he’d struck fool’s gold. “Listen, Bert,” he hedged, “I don’t know much about gold and …”

But Bert wasn’t listening, and sprinted into his cabin. A few moments later he appeared with a couple of small quartz samples. “What do you think?” he asked, handing them to Longarm. “They ain’t just pieces of fool’s gold, are they?”

Longarm wasn’t a mining man, and what he knew about gold and iron pyrite could be summed up in two or three sentences. But when he scraped the edge of his thumbnail into the bright yellow metal and his thick nail left a visible imprint, Longarm grinned because he was pretty sure that Bert had indeed found some gold shot through the quartz rock. Oakley was also straining to see the samples.

“Well,” Bert asked anxiously. “What do you think?”

Longarm glanced up at the outlaw, then furrowed his brow with disapproval because he wasn’t about to let Ford Oakley in on Bert’s secret. “Bert,” he said, “I’m afraid this ore is worthless iron pyrite.”

“No!” Bert cried, snatching back the samples, head wagging back and forth. “Marshal, you’re wrong!”

“I wish that I was,” Longarm said with a sad shake of his head. “But that’s not the case. Sorry.”

“You have to be wrong!” Bert cried, looking as if he was going to fall to pieces.

“I’m not,” Longarm said, climbing onto the lead horse and jamming his boots into the stirrups. “You’ve got a wagon, a few dollars, and two good weapons. So load up whatever you can, hitch those Missouri mules, and leave this lonesome country behind.”

Bert looked crushed and he sobbed, “But I … I was so sure that I’d struck it rich!”

“I’m sorry,” Longarm consoled. “But if it’s any help, I do have a friend in Elko that will give you a good price for that wagon and your livestock. Are you interested?”

“Guess so,” Bert mumbled, staring at his ore samples with a dazed expression. “Got a pencil and paper in that cabin?”

“Yeah.”

“Get them,” Longarm ordered.

When Bert staggered away, Oakley snorted, “What a gawddamn fool! I thought anyone knew the difference between real gold and fool’s gold.”

“Nope,” Longarm said, “apparently not.”

“He’s worthless,” Oakley snorted. “Just a cull.”

“I’m afraid so,” Longarm agreed.

“My men will probably put the fool out of his misery when they ride through here to kill you.”

Longarm didn’t say anything. He just waited until Bert shuffled back with a pencil and paper and then he scribbled a quick note:

To be on the safe side, leave at once for the next few weeks. Bert, you have found REAL gold! Good luck!

“Here,” Longarm said, “stuff this in your pocket and pack up everything you’ve got and then git!”

Bert nodded and, still in shock, wandered back into his cabin.

Longarm didn’t know how long it might be before the sad young homesteader happened to read his note. When Bert did read it, Longarm suspected the man might whoop and holler for joy. It would be safer for him if there was nobody about when that happened. What Bert did then was his own business. Longarm just hoped that the kid found a partner or someone he could really trust and that he’d not be cheated out of his good fortune.

But judging from what he’d seen of poor Bert, the odds were that he’d be skinned out of everything.

Chapter 13

Sophie and Molly caused quite a stir when they galloped into Lone Pine and began to search for the medicine wagon. And although the town was small and they looked everywhere, the distinctive wagon was nowhere to be found.

“Well,” Sophie said with mounting exasperation. “What do we do now?”

“There’s no law in this awful place,” Molly said, aware that dozens of hard-rock miners were ogling them with lust in their bloodshot eyes. “If we find the wagon, we find Marshal Long and that murdering Ford Oakley, so I say we had better start by finding out just where that wagon went.”

“Any suggestions how?”

Molly pointed to a young man in bib overalls who was gawking at them. “We might as well start by asking him.”

She rode over to the man, who pulled off his hat and then looked over both shoulders, certain that Molly was talking to someone behind him when she said, “Hi there, handsome!”

“Uh, who me?”

“That’s right. We’ve just arrived from Gold Mountain. We’re in town looking for a man that drove a medicine wagon in yesterday. Do you have any idea-“

“That’d be Marshal Long,” the man said, stepping eagerly forward. “Sure, I saw him! The whole town did. There was a big shootout and everything. Never saw so much blood and excitement.”

“Blood?” Sophie whispered.

“That’s right! The marshal was ambushed right about here on the street. A young deputy that was with him got plugged.”

“Oh, my gosh!” Sophie said. “Did Marshal Long’s prisoner escape?”

“You mean Ford Oakley?”

“Yes,” Molly said.

“He did for a fact!”

Sophie and Molly were desolate. “What,” Molly was finally able to say, “happened to the big federal marshal?”

“He got wounded, but not too bad. Nelly fixed him up and then he just disappeared.”

Sophie’s eyebrows raised. “Disappeared?”

“I think he got scared that Oakley’s friends were going to finish him off so he ran away.”

“In the medicine wagon?”

The young man shrugged his shoulders. “I guess. I dunno. Never thought much about it, to be honest.”

Molly took a deep breath. “If the marshal didn’t take the wagon, who did? We’ve searched everywhere in this town and haven’t found it yet.”

The young man grinned hopefully. “Well, if I had to guess,” he said, “I expect that Pete sold it.”

“Who,” Sophie asked, “is Pete?”

“He’s the town blacksmith, but he also owns the livery. You could ask him.” The kid turned and pointed down the street. “See that big barn?”

“Sure.”

“That’s his livery and blacksmith shop. Pete is almost always hangin’ around there someplace.”

“thanks,” Sophie said. “Thank you very much.”

The kid grinned. “I could walk down and introduce you to old Pete. He can be a crabby sonofabitch if you catch him in a bad mood.”

“We’ll be fine,” Molly said. “Thanks anyway.”

The kid nodded. “You staying long in Lone Pine?”

“Not one minute longer than necessary,” Sophie told him as she twisted around in her saddle and saw that no less than fifty miners were leering at her and Molly.

They rode quickly to the blacksmith’s shop, and found Pete hard at work shaping a mule’s shoe at his anvil. He didn’t even look up until both women had dismounted and moved close, but when he saw them, he dropped his hammer and the shoe and grinned like crazy.

“Are you Pete?” Molly asked, batting her eyelids.

“Yes, ma’am!” Pete wiped sweat from his face with the back of his arm, leaving a muddy smear across his forehead, and then he honored them with a slight bow. “How can I service you … ladies?”

Sophie had to laugh. This liveryman was dirty and sweaty, but at least he knew how to address the ladies. “We are looking for a friend,” she began.

Pete’s smile slipped a little. “A friend?”

“That’s right,” Molly said. “His name is Marshal Custis Long and he is driving a medicine wagon.”

Pete slammed the hammer down hard on the mule shoe. “Medicine wagon?”

Sophie’s opinion of the man was also slipping. “Are you a parrot?”

“Oh, no, ma’am!” Pete exclaimed, hammering a little more. “It’s just that I never heard of a marshal driving a medicine wagon. I mean, they usually-“

“Cut the bullshit!” Sophie snapped. “This whole damn town saw the big shootout yesterday. We know that Custis was wounded and that his prisoner, Ford Oakley, escaped. All we want to know now is … where did Marshal Custis Long go!”

Pete stepped away from his anvil and mopped his forehead again. “Why are you asking me?”

“Because,” Molly said, “you had the medicine wagon but now it’s gone.”

“Maybe I sold it to someone and they drove it away.”

“And maybe you’re lying,” Molly snapped. “The question is, why?”

Pete untied his leather apron and ran his fingers through his thin gray hair. He looked both women up and down and then he smiled. “Privileged information, ladies.”

“Privileged my ass!” Sophie hissed.

“That’s what it’s going to cost you both,” Pete said with a wink.

“No,” Sophie said, stomping her foot down hard. “Mister, you just name a price-“

“I just did,” Pete said, reaching into his pockets to get the makings for a cigarette.

“Ten dollars,” Molly offered.

Pete rolled his cigarette with a grin forming on his lips. When he had it lit, he shook his head. “Nope.”

“Twenty!” Sophie said between clenched teeth.

“How old are you two pretty ladies?” Pete asked, puffing with contentment.

“Old enough,” Molly said.

“That’s what I think too,” Pete said. “I got a fresh stack of straw delivered inside my barn yesterday. Nice clean straw. I’ll close up the place and then why don’t we all go mess it up for a while?”

“You awful old billy goat!” Sophie swore.

“Ain’t 1, though,” Pete said, grinning even wider.

“Shit,” Molly said, leading her horse into the barn.

“You’re going to do it?” Sophie asked with surprise.

“Can’t quit now, can we?” Molly called back, already beginning to unbutton her dress as she walked.

Sophie cussed a blue streak but went on inside.

An hour later, the two women rode out the back of the barn and headed into the mountains. As soon as they were gone, Red Kane, Deke, Gus, and Willard tied their horses behind the livery and out of sight. They entered the barn to find Pete buttoning up his trousers and whistling a happy tune.

“Howdy!” Kane called, waiting until Gus had closed the back door of the livery barn.

Pete forgot about buttoning up his pants. His smile and the whistle died at the same time. “Hello,” he said, eyes flicking back and forth between the four hard-cases. “Can I help you boys?”

“We think so,” Kane said, marching forward and stopping before the man. “We’re looking for Marshal Custis Long.”

“Can’t help you. Sorry.”

Kane’s big fist shot out and he grabbed Pete by the shirtfront. “Think again, you randy old bastard. Where is the marshal and that medicine wagon?”

“I … I don’t know what …”

Kane doubled up his fist and drove it into Pete’s nose, breaking it with a pop.

“Oww!” the blacksmith shouted, trying unsuccessfully to break loose and run.

Kane’s knee slammed into Pete’s testicles, and the blacksmith howled and collapsed to his knees. Kane pulled a long knife out of his boot top. “All right,” he said, grabbing Pete by the hair and exposing his throat. “For the last time, where is the marshal and his prisoner?”

“The prisoner got away!” Pete swore. “Everyone on the street saw that!”

“That’s right,” Kane said, “but what they didn’t see was what happened in here when Ford and a couple of his friends came in here to get his handcuffs removed. Now, what did happen?”

Pete’s eyes fixed on the knife being held at his throat. “I’ll tell you,” he cried. “Don’t kill me! Please, I’ll tell you everything.” Kane dragged Pete erect. “Start talking.”

“The marshal killed them other ones,” Pete stammered.

“All of them?” Gus asked. “We heard that three of Ford’s friends just disappeared.”

“That’s right! They had a big shootout and Marshal Long killed all three.”

“And Ford?”

“He was still handcuffed and didn’t have a chance. The marshal knocked him out cold.”

“Where are all the bodies?” Willard asked.

“We stuffed ‘em in the wagon,” Pete answered. “The marshal lit out for Elko on the eastbound road. It’s the only one going that way and you can’t miss it.”

The four men exchanged glances. Then Kane turned back to Pete and said, “How were they?”

He blinked. “Who?”

“Sophie and Molly, dammit!”

“Oh, those two.” Pete gulped, his throat dry as desert sand. “Not bad. We just talked and …”

“You’re a damned liar,” Big Willard said. “Ain’t he lyin’ to us, brother?”

“He sure as hell is,” Kane agreed. “He screwed ‘em both, I’d bet on it. How were they?”

Pete was pouring with sweat and the blow to his testicles had left him feeling as if he needed to vomit. “All right,” he choked. “They were good. Real good.”

The four men chuckled and exchanged grins. “We’re fixin’to find out real soon,” Kane announced. “But first, we got some unfinished business with you.”

Pete tried to break free and run. He took a wild swing at Kane, but Big Willard was already stepping in behind him and clamping both of his huge hands on the sides of Pete’s face. An instant later, Pete felt a stab of pain at the base of his skull, and then he heard a loud, popping sound as his neck was snapped. After that, he heard nothing.

“Let’s see if he’s got anything worth stealing,” Kane said as his brother dropped the twitching man to the ground, “and then let’s ride after Marshal Long and them two women.”

“Why don’t we just take the women now,” Willard said, smiling down at the man whose neck he’d just broken with such ease.

“Because,” Kane said, “I want us to get them all at the same damned time and have us a big get-together party.”

“Yeah,” Willard said. “That makes good sense.”

Willard giggled and knelt to clean out Pete’s pockets, but then he jack-knifed up and stared at his hands. “Oh, damn you!” he cussed.

“What’s wrong?” Deke asked.

“That lyin’ old goat just pissed all over hisself!”

Willard swore with indignation as he wiped his hand on his dirty pants. Now it was Deke’s turn to finally giggle.

Chapter 14

Molly Bean drew her horse up sharply and dismounted. She bent and picked up the animal’s front foot and pretended to inspect it for a rock.

“What are you doing?” Sophie asked. “I didn’t notice him limping.”

“Don’t turn around,” Molly warned. “I think we are being followed.”

“Followed?” Sophie was so surprised that she forgot the warning and started to turn, but Molly cried, “I said don’t turn around!”

“All right, all right,” Sophie said, looking somewhat shaken. “I won’t turn around! But who-“

“It must be some of Ford’s gang that have followed us all the way from Gold Mountain,” Molly said. “Probably those terrible Kane brothers. Maybe Deke and Gus and Floyd. I know.”

“Oh, damn!” Sophie cussed. “I’m afraid you’re right. They’d have returned to Gold Mountain after discovering that the Elko-bound stage wasn’t carrying Ford. They’d have started snooping around.”

“And learned that we rented these horses and didn’t return them,” Molly said. “Red Kane and his brother are certainly idiots, but even they could figure it out and come looking for us.”

Sophie was visiblly paler. “If it is them, what are we going to do?”

“I don’t know,” Molly said. “I don’t see that there’s much we can do but try and loose them. At least we are riding fast horses.”

“Yes, but …”

“If we’re leading those outlaws to Marshal Long, we’ve got a responsibility to get rid of them,” Molly insisted. “So I say let’s wait until we go around another bend where they can’t see us. Then let’s see if these horses really can run.”

Sophie shook her head. “But then they’ll know that we’re onto their game.”

“So?” Molly climbed back on her horse. “We just lead them off on a wild-goose chase through the forest and maybe we can shake them off our trail.”

“You really think we could?”

Molly nodded. “We’re both good horsewomen and I know a thing or two about tracking.”

“You do?”

“Of course!” Molly said. “I once had a brief fling with a mustanger who brought me up here and we hunted wild horses. Only we didn’t get out of the bedroll very often and we never saw a single mustang.”

Molly sighed. “And to think how romantic that smooth-talkin liar made the thrill of the chase sound before he tricked me into that awful week of rutting in the dust.”

“That just figures, knowing you,” Sophie said, managing a nervous smile.

“You’re a fine one to talk,” Molly replied, remounting her horse. “There’s a bend in the road up ahead. Let’s get around it and then strike out for virgin ground. I just know that we can shake those murdering fools.”

“I hope you’re right,” Sophie said. “If we don’t, and if they catch us trying to outrun them, we’re in a bad, bad fix. You know what those Kane brothers are like.”

Molly smiled bravely. “Yes, I do,” she said, feeling her own palms begin to sweat with nervousness.

When they rounded a bend, Molly took a deep breath and looked to both sides of the road. “Well,” she said, spying a rocky place where their tracks would be difficult, if not impossible, to detect when they left the road and headed up through the trees toward the top of a heavily forested mountain. “Follow me and hang on for your life!”

Molly was an exceptional horsewoman, better than Sophie, and she put her boot heels to her horse and shot up the trail. The air was thin but their horses were in excellent shape, and she found a game trail and followed it at a run, occasionally ducking low-hanging branches as her mount flew up the trail, dodging trees and rocks.

“Slow down!” Sophie cried, hanging onto her saddlehorn. “Dammit, I was almost beheaded back there by a limb!”

But Molly kept urging her horse on up the mountain trail until it could not climb anymore and was blowing like a steam engine.

“All right,” she said, drawing the animal up for a short breather and then jumping down to hand her reins to a very disheveled-looking Sophie. “Hang onto my horse while I scoot up on top of that rock and see if it really was the Kane brothers and that crowd following us.”

“I hope this was all unnecessary,” Sophie said. “I hope that no one is following us, or that it’s just someone heading over the mountains for reasons that haven’t a thing to do with us or Ford Oakley.”

“That would be my hope too,” Molly said, scrambling up rocks.

But five minutes later, when she reappeared again, Molly looked grim. “It was them,” she announced. “The Kane brothers and Deke and Gus. They must have followed us all the way.”

“What are they doing now?” Sophie asked, her heart beginning to pound.

“They stayed on the road and kept riding. They didn’t see where we cut away.”

“Then we’re saved!”

“Not exactly,” Molly said. “They won’t ride far before they’ll realize our tracks are missing. When that happens, they’ll be furious and start backtracking to find where we gave them the slip.”

“Will they be able to do that?”

“Yes,” Molly said. “I’m sure that even they are smart enough to flank the road and finally chance across our tracks. Once that happens, they’ll come running.”

“So … so how much of a head start do we have?”

“Three or four hours… maybe.”

Sophie nodded. “Well, then, let’s make the most of them and find that damned medicine wagon.”

“I think that would be an excellent idea,” Molly said, climbing back onto her horse and leading the way over the mountain.

Three hours later they’d finally looped back, and now they were staring at the Hollingsworth homestead. Parked right beside it was the medicine wagon.

“There it is!” Molly said. “Custis must be inside with Ford. Thank heavens we’ve time to warn him about the Kane brothers and their friends.”

“And to see if we can’t just tip the scales of justice a little quicker and send Ford to Hell,” Sophie said, patting the derringer that she kept hidden in her pocket.

“Yes, and that too.” Molly frowned. “The only thing that I can’t figure is why the marshal would be staying here and why those mules are hitched to the wagon.”

“Yeah,” Sophie said, “that is a mystery, but …”

Right then, they saw a thin young man appear from behind the cabin. He was carrying a burlap sack so heavy he was straining. They watched him struggle to lift and put it into the back of the medicine wagon. He closed and latched the door carefully and then he mopped his brow.

“He must be the homesteader that lives here,” Molly said.

“Kind of cute,” Sophie commented. “Looks awfully underfed, though.”

“Look,” Molly said as the man went to his corral and dropped the gate poles, “now he’s bringing up some horses and tying them to the back of the wagon. He’s in a real hurry to leave.”

“Do you think he could have somehow gotten the drop on Custis and killed both him and Ford?”

“Naw,” Molly said. “Not a chance.”

“Then where are they?”

Molly shook her head. “We’re just going to have to go down there and ask. With the Kane brothers coming up somewhere behind us, we haven’t got the time to fiddle around.”

“And no more giving our bodies away for information!” Sophie snapped. “This one may be young and even cute, but I’m feeling a little bit used right now and having another man is not in my plans.”

“All right,” Molly said. “That old blacksmith was a little rough and we’re just not going to do that anymore. At least, not until we find Marshal Long.”

Sophie grinned. “Yeah,” she said, “I could put him back in my pants in a hurry!”

They both laughed, which was important since they were under such a great deal of strain, and then they rode down to talk to the thin homesteader and find out what had happened to the marshal and his prisoner.

When Bert saw them coming, he almost panicked. He had read Custis’s note about the gold and he had not really settled back down to earth yet. Bert had taken the note completely at face value, so he was determined to leave as soon as possible. The last thing he’d expected to see was two pretty young women riding down out of the mountains and grinning and waving at him like he was their long-lost brother.

He again checked the latch on the back door of the medicine wagon, which now held about two hundred pounds of his gold-bearing quartz. He also checked to make sure his two extra saddle horses were securely tethered to the rear of the wagon. His fine pair of matched Missouri mules were in harness and even impatient to get rolling, so Bert climbed up on the driver’s seat and raised his lines.

“Hello there!” Molly said, trotting into the yard. “Are you hurrying off someplace?”

“I’m afraid so,” Bert said, trying not to notice how pretty they both were for he had decided never again to trust good-looking women.

“Could we get some food and water from you?” Sophie whined. “We’re just starving!”

“I’d sure like to help you ladies out,” he said, “but I just can’t. You see, I’m in a real big hurry to get to Elko. But you are both welcome to use my cabin. There’s a couple of tins of beans inside.”

“Where did you get the medicine wagon?” Molly asked in her most matter-of-fact manner.

“I … I bought it,” Bert lied.

Molly carried a six-gun, and now she dragged it up and pointed it at the young man’s chest. “No, you didn’t,” she said, cocking back the hammer. “You must have stole it from Marshal Custis Long of Denver. Now, where is he?”

Bert’s eyes widened with fear and his hands shot up over his head. “Are you the ones that he warned me about?”

“No,” Molly said with disgust, “but I mean business, that’s for damned sure. Now where is the marshal?”

Before Bert could answer, Sophie twisted around in her saddle and spied the fresh graves. “Look, Molly. Over in that dead cornfield you can see where the dirt has just been turned.”

“Four graves,” Molly said, looking back at the man now quaking in fear on the seat of the medicine wagon. “Mister, you had just damn well better start talking fast.”

“Don’t shoot!” he cried. “I’m the marshal’s friend! He asked me to bury them four and, in return, he paid me a dollar and this wagon.”

“Liar!” Molly cried. “He wouldn’t give you that wagon for nothing but a measly dollar!”

“And what,” Sophie demanded as she produced her derringer and also pointed it at the now thoroughly frightened homesteader, “happened to that ornery, murdering sonofabitch Ford Oakley?”

“I’ll tell you everything!” Bert said. “Just please don’t shoot.”

“Then quit shaking and start giving us some answers,” Molly ordered as she lowered the gun.

Bert managed to calm himself down. He told them everything—everything, that is, except about Longarm’s note and the fact that he had probably struck it rich up behind his log cabin.

When he was finished, Molly said, “You got any way to prove what you’re telling us is the truth?”

Bert took a deep breath and said, “You could dig up those graves and you’d see that the deputy from Gold Mountain is lying in one of them and that the others are filled with bad-looking men instead of Marshal Long or his prisoner.”

“Yeah,” Sophie said, wrinkling her nose because the idea was so objectionable, “I suppose that we could do that.”

“No,” Molly decided, “that would take up too much time. We have to get out of here, remember?”

Sophie looked back over her shoulder and nodded with understanding. “You’re right.”

Bert followed their gaze. “Ladies, is there somebody following you? Someone that I should know about?”

“Yes,” Molly said, deciding to tell this young man the truth. “We are being followed by some of Ford Oakley’s friends and they are killers.”

Bert paled a little. “Killers?”

“Absolutely,” Sophie said.

“But why would they kill any of us?” Bert asked. “We don’t have their friend in custody.”

“No, but you helped the marshal and they know that Sophie and me would like to kill their friend. Those are a couple of the reasons that first come to mind. They also just like to see people suffer and then die.”

“Oh, my Gawd,” Bert said, wiping his face. “This sounds even worse than the marshal said it could be.”

“It could get real bad,” Sophie agreed.

Bert gulped. “So … so what are we going to do?”

Molly took a deep breath and expelled it slowly. “I think,” she said, “the best thing we can do is to lead them off on a wild-goose chase after that medicine wagon.”

“Are you crazy!” Sophie exclaimed, forgetting herself and staring at her friend.

“Only for a few miles,” Molly said, “and then we can abandon the wagon and stampede the mules so that there are tracks going off into the forest in two directions.”

“No!” Bert cried. “I can’t leave the wagon and I won’t give up my mules either!”

“The mules I can understand because they look to be a fine pair,” Molly said. “But why do you want to keep the medicine wagon?”

He couldn’t dare tell them that it was loaded with his precious gold-bearing quartz rock. “It … it’s valuable,” he finally stuttered.

“No, it isn’t!” Molly argued. “It’s not worth much at all, and you can be sure that the Kane brothers won’t take it with them. They want Ford! Not the wagon.”

Bert squirmed under their intense scrutiny. “But … but you just don’t understand!”

“What don’t we understand?” Molly demanded.

“The wagon is carrying …” Bert heaved a sigh. He was trapped and time was running out. “The wagon is carrying my gold ore!“What!” Sophie shouted.

“It’s true,” Bert confessed, dragging out Longarm’s hurried note. “Read this and it’ll prove that I’ve been telling you the truth from the start.”

“Except for one very important omission about the gold,” Sophie observed. “Is it high-grade stuff?”

“I don’t know,” Bert admitted, climbing down from his wagon and going to the back to unlock the door, “but I promise you that it’s not going to fall into the hands of those outlaws.”

Sophie looked at Molly. “Instead of running, I say just go into that cabin, wait, and ambush the Kane brothers, then share his gold mine.”

“Don’t be stupid!” Molly snapped. “In the first place, we’d be the ones that were killed. And in the second place, the gold doesn’t belong to us.”

Sophie’s eyebrows shot up. “Well, dammit, we ought to get something if we’re going to fight to protect it!”

But Bert was already hauling the sacks out of the wagon. “There’s only one answer to this,” he said, grunting. “I’m tossing every last one of these sacks of ore into my dry well and then we’re leaving.”

Alarm sprang into Sophie’s eyes. “Well, how deep is the damned well?”

“Ten feet,” Bert grunted, dumping in the first sack. “Not so deep that I can’t come back and pull them back up.”

“What’s this stuff?” Sophie said. “We ought to get something for coming here to warn you. If we hadn’t-“

“I’d have already been gone,” Bert interrupted.

“Yeah,” Molly said, “but they’d have spotted the wheel tracks and followed you. They’d have caught you long before you reached Elko, and then they’d have tortured you into telling them how to find Marshal Long and Ford Oakley. And after that, they’d have found those sacks of gold ore and tortured you some more until you told them about your gold mine. Then, they’d finally have put you out of your misery.”

Bert expelled a deep breath and placed his hands on his narrow hips. “Yes,” he said, “I suppose that’s all true.”

“It sure is!” Molly said. “So, we are trying to save your life and we should have a share of your gold.”

“A third,” Sophie interjected.

Bert’s jaw sagged. “Hell, no!”

“All right,” Molly said, “if we survive, we get half, you get half. Half is better than Willard Kane breaking all your fingers and toes, then slowly peeling off your skin with a dull knife. Isn’t it?”

Bert tossed another heavy bag of ore in the well. “All right,” he said, “half and half. It’s a deal. Just figure out a way to keep us alive.”

“That’s the grand plan,” Molly said. “Now let’s get out of here fast.”

It broke Bert’s heart to leave his gold mine and sacks of ore behind, but he knew that the killers who followed Marshal Long would never think to look down a dry well for gold. They would probably spot the fresh grave sites, though. After that, they’d take a few minutes and dig them up to make sure that Ford Oakley’s body wasn’t resting in one of the shallow graves. And when they discovered that Ford was still alive, they would come after the medicine wagon with a vengeance. What happened after that, Bert was afraid to even think about.

Chapter 15

Longarm had crossed over the Ruby Mountains through Secret Pass just a little to the west of Pilot Peak, which was nearly eleven thousand feet high. Now he could see the Humbolt River just up ahead, and he knew that, if he followed the river another thirty or forty miles, he’d be arriving in Elko.

The trouble was, all four of his horses were played out and darkness would be falling on this high desert country in another hour. If his horses had been fresh, Longarm would have just ground out this last hot, dry stretch into Elko by riding all night. As it was, he had relayed the horses, and all four had already been pushed to their limits humping it over the Ruby Mountains. Longarm knew that to push them any harder was to risk laming one of the animals he’d promised to leave for the blacksmith back in Lone Pine.

As if reading his thoughts, Oakley called, “Hey! You want us to wind up walking the last thirty miles, just keep pushing these horses!”

“Shut up,” Longarm ordered.

“You ain’t thinking of trying to ride all the way into Elko tonight, are you?”

“What I’m thinking,” Longarm said, “is none of your business.”

Oakley snickered. “I forgot to ask you a very important question, Marshal Custis Long.” Longarm ignored the man. “Ain’t you curious what I mean to ask?”

“NO.”

“I’ll tell you anyway,” Oakley said. “I’ve had so much on my mind that I keep forgetting to ask if you’re a family man. You know, with a wife and children?”

“No.”

“That’s good!” Oakley said, nodding vigorously. “I sure hate to leave a woman a widow. Especially the ugly ones. The pretty ones, well, they can always find another man. But the ugly ones have a devil of a time.”

Longarm glanced over at the outlaw, whose hands were lashed to his saddlehorn and whose ankles were bound to his stirrups. “Too bad you weren’t an honest, upstanding citizen, Ford.”

“Why is that?” the outlaw asked with a grin.

“Well, you’re so full of bullshit that you could have made a fine lawyer.”

Ford brayed like a mule, laughing until he ran out of air. “Marshal, it’s real good to see that you have a sense of humor after all.”

“I’ve got a good sense of humor,” Longarm said, and a sense of justice that is just dying to see you swing from the gallows.”

Ford’s grin melted into a scowl. “You know, I’ve got some money hidden that could set you up pretty fine.”

“Really?”

“That’s right!” Ford looked closely at Longarm. “And I’m not talking pocket change either.”

“How much are you talking about?”

“Thousands.”

“About four thousand, I’d imagine.”

Oakley’s eyes widened with surprise. “Now, how did you guess that it was four thousand?”

“That’s how much money you and your gang took at that last bank job, isn’t it? The one where one of your men died of lead poisoning trying to escape.”

“That was a shame, but he was a little old for our line of work,” Oakley admitted, trying to keep from laughing but not quite succeeding. “His main problem was that his horse was even slower than he was!”

Longarm let the man enjoy his own sick sense of humor. But then Oakley grew serious again and said, “What do you say? Two thousand each. No questions asked. No strings attached. That’s what … two years’wages?”

“About.”

“Two years to sit in a rocking chair and do nothing but play with your woman. Not bad, huh?”

“Not interested.”

Oakley’s face darkened with anger. “You’re just dumb as a post, know that, Marshal?”

“I know that I’ll be alive to watch fall turn the colors gold and red, and to smell the flowers next spring. But you won’t be around to enjoy any of those things. And I know that I’ll probably have a few more women … but you never will.”

Ford gulped. “All right,” he said quietly. “How about you take three thousand, I’ll take only one. I need that much just to get me started over again someplace where I won’t have to worry about someone shooting me in the back.”

“Someone like the cutthroats in your gang that you are trying to cheat out of a share of that money?”

“Yeah,” Oakley said, “someone like that.”

“Not interested.”

“Shit!” Oakley swore. “All right. You can have all of it except the hundred bucks I already spent and another hundred that I’ll need for a one-way train ticket goin’ whichever way you ain’t.”

“Where’d you hide the bank’s four thousand?” Longarm asked quietly.

“Wouldn’t you like to know!”

“Yeah, I would,” Longarm said. “If you tell me, maybe we could make things easier for you.”

Oakley barked a distainful laugh. “How? Would you ask the hangman to use a silk rope around my neck?”

Even Longarm had to smile at that one.

“No,” he said, “but I might see that you get cigars and a shade better food while you’re waiting to face your Maker.”

Ford opened his mouth, then clamped it shut. His brow furrowed the way it did when he was thinking hard. “Tell you what, I would like to enjoy my last few days in style. Maybe, if I took you to that hidden bank money, you could see that the prison guards snuck a few women into my cell so that old Ford could have a few more good times.”

“Not a chance.”

“Come on!” Ford wailed. “They’d like it. I’d like it. Who’s hurt?”

Longarm sighed. “You’re just way too dangerous a man to allow visitors under any circumstances. But what I could do is see that you get those better meals the last few days, good cigars, and-“

“I’d want a lot better cigars than those black turds that you chew and smoke,” Oakley snapped.

“Fair enough,” Longarm said, not the least bit offended by the remark, “and maybe some whiskey.”

“Whiskey would be good,” Oakley said. “In cases, not bottles.”

Longarm figured the taxpayers would consider a few cases of whiskey and a few extra steaks and pies a fair swap for the recovery of four thousand dollars of stolen money. “All right, where is the money?”

“I’ll take you there.”

“Nope. Just tell me.”

“Nope,” Oakley said. “I got to take you there because it’s impossible to describe.”

“Why?”

“Because,” Oakley said, “it’s hidden just east of here beside the Humboldt River.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“It ain’t much out of the way,” Oakley said. “After the robbery, we followed that Humboldt River and, when the boys were sleeping, I buried the money. They didn’t find out about it until the next day, and by that time we’d ridden another twenty miles.”

“I bet that they weren’t too happy.”

“We did almost shed some blood over that,” Oakley admitted.

“So,” Longarm said. “Exactly how far is the money from the river?”

“Not more’n fifty feet,” Oakley said. “We’re almost going to ride over the top of it.”

Longarm did not see what could be lost by making this deal, as long as they were riding that way anyhow.

“All right,” he said, “we’ll play it out. Understand that I don’t trust you any farther than I can throw you and that, if this is all a ruse, you’re just wasting our time.”

“I’m in no hurry to catch that train,” Oakley said, shaking his head. “The gospel truth is, Marshal, that I’m beginning to think that I’m not going to get to kill you after all. I thought some of the boys would be trying to overtake us … but I guess that they’ve just forgotten old Ford.”

“You’re breaking my heart.”

“And so,” Oakley said, ignoring Longarm’s caustic remark, “I might as well trade that four thousand dollars for whatever small comforts I can get before I swing.”

“Glad to see that you’re finally thinking smart,” Longarm told his prisoner, not believing a single word of it.

“Well,” Ford said with a deep sigh, “I have to admit that I do deserve to hang for killing and raping and stealing. I’ve been a real ornery sonofabitch since I was about twelve years old and I cut the guts out of my old man.”

“You knifed your father?”

“Yep. It was from him that I got my mean streak. He always got drunk and beat my mother and me. Finally, one night I’d had enough as he was beatin’ hell out of poor old Mama, sittin’astraddle of her and really working her over with his fists. I grabbed a butcher knife and, quicker than you can say ‘nope,’ I opened him up like a ripe melon.”

“What happened then?”

“I lit out and never looked back at Oklahoma. I was used hard by everyone I met while growing up and trying to find honest labor. I never got a break or a kind word and so, by the time I was twenty, I’d shot or stabbed more’n a few of ‘em to death and took what they’d lorded over me. Raped their cryin’ damned widows too if they’d struck my fancy. I knew that I was doin’wrong, but I didn’t much care.”

“How much farther to this place where you hid the bank money?” Longarm asked, glancing up at the sun, which was just starting to dive into a low rise of barren hills to the west. Already, the skyline was turning crimson and gold.

“Not far. About … oh, five miles, I’d guess.”

“That means we won’t get there until after dark.”

“Be time to camp and cook some grub anyway,” Oakley remarked. “Been a long, hard ride, wouldn’t you say, Marshal?”

“I’ve been on some a lot longer and harder.”

“But I’ll bet you never brought a man in tougher or meaner than me, right?”

Longarm just refused to give the killer any satisfaction. “Sure I have,” he said. “You’ve been damned easy compared to a few others I’ve had to escort to the gallows.”

“The Hell you say!” Oakley was visibly offended. “I could have killed any one of them! I’m the toughest, smartest, and most dangerous man you ever had to bring in and you don’t even know it yet!”

Longarm glanced at the outlaw leader. “Yet?” he repeated. “That sounds like you’re still of a mind to get your head cracked open again.”

The outlaw’s jaw muscles corded and he stayed silent until the sun dove into the mountains and the stars begin to appear. They finally came to the Humboldt River and allowed the horses a good long drink.

“How much farther to the money?” Longarm asked.

“About two miles, maybe less,” Oakley said, looking intently into the deepening night. “Now that we’re down in this low part of the riverbed and it’s dark, I have to get my bearings.”

“I’ll bet that you’ve only ridden along here about a thousand times in the last few years.”

Oakley said nothing, but instead made a big show of looking all around, squinting and gawking. “There!” he finally said. “That’s where I hid it!”

“Where?”

“Over there in those river caves and tunnels!”

Longarm followed the man’s gaze to a sandstone cliff formed by the river’s cutting. The cliff wasn’t high, only about twenty feet, but it was at least another hundred feet long. The cliff was pocked with hundreds of caves, most of which were only shallow indentations. A good number, however, would probably go back into the sandstone a dozen or more feet.

“I think that you’re lying.”

“No, I ain’t!” Ford pointed into the shadows. “You’ll find an old campsite and corral right over there in them cottonwood trees. That’s where me and the boys always camped. And when they was asleep, I climbed up that cliff and found me one of them deep caves. I crawled inside and stuffed the bank money in and then I crawled back out again.”

“How did you mark the cave?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that there are so many that you must have marked it somehow.”

“Hell, I … I marked it with a little cut in the rock!”

Longarm didn’t think that there was one chance in a thousand the man was telling the truth. But he was bone-tired and, if there was a corral and a camp all ready for them to spend the night in, he was game to test his theory and prove this man a liar.

“All right,” he said, “we’ll put the horses up in that makeshift corral and bed ourselves down. We can look for your money at first light.”

“Wouldn’t you rather have it tonight?” Oakley asked hopefully.

“Nope. What good would that do me out here? As a matter of fact, what good would it do me anywhere since it belongs to the people you stole it from?”

“Yeah,” Oakley said. “I guess that’s the way that an honest man could look at it.”

“It’s the only way an honest man could look at it,” Longarm said as he rode up to the corral, wearily climbed down, and unsaddled his nearly staggering mount.

“I’m mighty hungry,” Ford said as Longarm came over to untie him from the saddle. “Hungry and tired.”

“We’ll make this last camp a good one and eat everything I transferred out of the wagon,” Longarm said, untying one boot and then going around and untying the other.

He untied Ford’s wrists, which were still bound by Marshal Wheeler’s handcuffs but now also tied to the saddlehorn. Longarm was about to reach up and pull the man down when Ford kicked him in the chest and then booted his horse forward, screaming like a wild man and sending his mount plunging into the river.

“Damn!” Longarm swore, reaching for his saddle and trying to catch one of his spare horses. “This time, I am going to kill him!”

Longarm had one hell of a time catching Ford Oakley. Fortunately, the outlaw leader was riding one of the slowest horses, but it still took Longarm nearly a mile to overtake the man.

“Pull up!” Longarm shouted, drawing his six-gun and firing a warning shot.

But Oakley was in no mind to give up the chase, so Longarm just pulled even with the man and pistol-whipped him. Oakley slumped across his saddle, and Longarm grabbed the reins of the horse and pulled it to a standstill.

“Dammit,” Longarm raged. “When are you going to give up!”

Oakley raised his bloodied head. “If I’m going to hang, I’ll go to Hell fighting,” he gritted. “So why don’t you do us both a favor and shoot me?”

“Not a chance. That would be too easy for the likes of YOU.”

“I ain’t done yet,” Oakley grunted. “I ain’t givin’up the idea of killing you!”

“A man should always have his dreams,” Longarm said tightly as he flipped the reins of Oakley’s horse over its head and led it back toward their camp.

Chapter 16

Longarm figured to get no sleep that night as they made camp beside the gurgling Humboldt River. He had tied Ford Oakley to a tree, rechecked his handcuffs, and built himself a fire. There was no coffee to help him keep his long, lonely vigil, but the coyotes did a pretty good job of serenading.

“Go ahead,” Oakley said about midnight. “Close your eyes and go to sleep. What the Hell can I do handcuffed and hugging this tree all night?”

“You’d think of something,” Longarm said. “Maybe you’d even try to dig the tree up and use it to beat me to death.”

Oakley laughed outright at the thought. “You know, Marshal, I really do wish that we could have been friends. I like your sense of humor and we could have done some real damage if we’d rode the outlaw trail together.”

“We’d have probably been caught, convicted, and hanged long ago,” Longarm said, stifling a yawn.

“Probably,” Oakley admitted. “I tell you one thing. I never had any boys in my gang that were your equal. Red Kane and Willard, his half-wit brother, could give either of us a good fight, but they’re both dumb as fence posts. Deke and Gus are a couple of chicken-shit losers that I never trusted.”

Longarm poked at the fire. “I like to work alone,” he said, “and I always have.”

“You ever marry?”

Longarm shook his head. “I’ve had my share of women. Even loved a few, but I never married. In my line of work, a man is better off single.”

“I got a wife and four kids over in Arizona,” Oakley said. “I send ‘em money every time I do a bank or a train job. I don’t know what the Hell is going to become of them after I’m gone. The wife is pretty sick.”

Longarm wanted to retch. “You’re the biggest bullshitter I’ve ever known! You haven’t a wife and children. And even if you did, they’re better off without you.”

Oakley’s face hardened. “You’re one cold-hearted sonofabitch, Marshal Long.”

“Maybe,” he said, “but I don’t rape, rob, and murder. Now shut up. I’d rather listen to the coyotes than to your lies.”

Oakley leaned his forehead against the tree and closed his eyes. In five minutes, he was snoring and Longarm was fighting off sleep.

Dawn came slow over the sagebrush-covered hills. It crept in like a house burglar. One minute all was dark beyond Longarm’s campfire. The next there was a faint gray line on the eastern horizon, and then gray turned to liquid gold, washing across the far hills. Trees, the pole corral, their four horses, the slow, meandering Humboldt River, and finally the entire sweep of the empty desert itself crystallized and emerged in the strengthening sunlight.

Longarm fed his fire and stared off to the west, toward Elko. He was dog tired and his sleep-starved brain was not clear. What he did know was that he would not be spending another night sleeping on the trail. When he reached Elko, he could lock Ford Oakley up and the town marshal would allow him to sleep on a nice, comfortable cot until the next eastbound train was ready to carry him to Cheyenne. From Cheyenne, he would catch the Denver Pacific Railroad line that ran 106 miles connecting Cheyenne with Denver. Yes, Longarm thought, once I get to Elko, things are going to get better quick.

Longarm climbed to his feet and stretched, hands reaching up to the crimson of sunrise. He yawned and went over to saddle his two freshest horses.

“You’re all going to get fed well tonight,” he promised them.

When the horses were saddled and the other pair were readied to follow, Longarm finished breaking camp and then he went over and jarred Oakley into wakefulness. The outlaw started, and then he relaxed and yawned. “We’re ready to ride,” Longarm said.

“What about that bank money I stuffed into one of them river cliff caves yonder?”

“I don’t believe it exists.”

“Four thousand dollars is a lot of money! It ought to be worth a few minutes of your precious time, Marshal Long.”

“All right,” Custis agreed. “But I’m tired of beating on your wooden head. If you try something again, I’m probably going to just shoot you in the gut and let you die slow.”

“You don’t scare me. You’re too damned honorable to just kill me outright. No, you’ll do your duty even if it gets you killed.”

Longarm untied the man’s hands and wrists that he’d bound to the tree. Oakley still wore handcuffs, and Longarm had his six-gun in his fist when he said, “Lead the way.”

Oakley’s legs had gone dead and it took him several minutes to unlimber them. Then he grinned and said, “I sure slept well last night, Marshal Long! How’d you sleep?”

“Fine,” Longarm lied. “Just fine.”

“No, you didn’t,” Oakley said. “You didn’t sleep a single damned wink and you look like death. Your eyes have big bags under them and-“

“Move!” Longarm ordered, stepping in behind the big outlaw and prodding him in the spine.

Oakley moved off alongside the river. The day was already warming up and the river looked cool and refreshing. In this place, it was narrow and surprisingly deep. Longarm could well see how its current was a lot stronger than it first appeared.

“Up this way,” Oakley said, angling up a steep path that led up the side of the sandstone cliffs. “Some folks claim that all these caves were made by the Paiutes that lived in this country. I always thought that they were made by birds.”

“Birds?”

“Sure,” Oakley explained, “for their nesting. Inside those caves, they’d have shelter and they’d have the water and the trees along the river. Either it was the birds or some muskrats.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Longarm said. “These caves are far too big for birds or muskrats.”

“Well, maybe the first trappers shot out all the really big ones and all we see left are the runts.”

“Shut up,” Longarm growled, finding the whole conversation ludicrous. “How much farther to this cave?”

“It’s one of them big ones near the top of this path. What’s the matter, tired already, Marshal?”

Longarm didn’t answer. He just kept climbing the little footpath until they reached a cave that was about four feet in diameter and went back far enough that you couldn’t see where it ended.

“This is the one,” Oakley announced. “There’s four thousand dollars piled up at the back wall. Go on in and you’ll find it all except for the little I kept and already spent.”

“Where’s the cut that you said marked this cave?”

“Musta washed away in a hard rain,” Oakley said, his back to the cliff. Then, he stepped a little aside. Why, here it is!”

“You just made that X.”

“No, I didn’t!” Oakley smiled and looked down at the water far below. “When I was a kid, I used to ride over here with my friends and dive off this cliff into that water. Had a hell of a good time.”

“No, you didn’t,” Longarm said. “You grew up in Oklahoma and you worked at odd jobs. You never had any friends.”

Oakley’s eyes tightened at the corners. “Are you going in to get that money, or not?”

“You go in,” Longarm said, not about to crawl into that cave and leave his prisoner unguarded.

“Me?”

“That’s right. Get the money and crawl back out.”

“What if I got in there and decided not to come out?” Oakley asked. “Would you have the balls to come in after me?”

“I think I’d just hike down and get that shotgun that Marshal Wheeler gave me. A couple barrels of shot would pretty well put an end to your foolishness.”

“Yeah,” Oakley said, looking impressed, “I guess it would at that. All right, I’ll go in and get the money. But our deal about the whiskey, good cigars, and food still stands. Right?”

“Right.”

“Fair enough,” Oakley said, stooping down and then entering the cave on his hands and knees as Longarm stood perched on the narrow path and waited.

“How far back does it go!” Longarm called.

“About thirty feet,” Oakley shouted between his legs as he disappeared into the darkness. “I wanted to pick a deep cave so that animals or kids wouldn’t go all the way back and then destroy or steal my money.”

Longarm waited. And waited. Finally, he yelled, “Okay, you’ve had long enough. Come on out! The game is over!”

“Coming!” Oakley yelled. “Here I come.”

Longarm heard his prisoner grunting, and pretty soon he could be seen crawling back out, face first.

“There must have been more room in there than I thought,” Longarm said, “if you could turn around.”

“There was,” Oakley said. “See these saddlebags? They got the money!”

Longarm was really surprised to see Oakley pushing the bags along through the dust in front of him. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said. “You were telling the truth.”

“Why, sure!” Oakley said as he came into full view. “Here, reach in and take ‘em!”

Longarm reached for the bags, but Oakley must have planted a six-gun with his bounty because, the very next thing that Longarm knew, he saw a muzzle flash and felt his left arm go numb. He jumped back from the mouth of the cave, lost his balance, and dropped off the cliff, arms windmilling.

Longarm struck the water on the flat of his back and sank to the muddy bottom, then kicked back up to the surface. Maybe that was a mistake because Oakley had dragged himself out of the cave and was firing right down on him.

A bullet plinked a small geyser of water in Longarm’s face, and he raised his gun but it didn’t fire. Oakley began to laugh, and when another bullet grazed Longarm’s scalp, he dove back down and swam like hell for the cover of some nearby trees. Longarm knew that Oakley would either be waiting for him to surface so that he could take aim and kill him, or else would already be on his feet and trying to scramble down the cliff to be the first to reach Longarm’s rifle, the shotgun, and the horses.

Longarm dropped his useless gun and swam for all his might. He was sure that, if Oakley reached their camp first, the game was over and he was going to be the loser. He swam underwater until his breath was fire, and then he swam some more until he reached the trees. Surfacing, he tensed, half expecting Oakley to shoot him in the head. But there was no shot and when he looked up, he saw the outlaw trying to navigate the path as fast as possible. Trouble was, the path was narrow and had a lot of switchbacks.

Longarm jumped to his feet and splashed out of the river, running as hard as he could for the camp. Oakley spotted him and began to fire. Longarm ran a zigzag pattern and didn’t dare waste even a second to look back. He knew that he had to get to the camp first and put a rifle in his hands.

Oakley must have realized that too. In a rage of frustration and when he was still a good ten feet above the river, he jumped. Longarm heard him strike the water, and then he heard another shot. Apparently, the outlaw’s gun was still functioning.

During the last few yards to the camp, it felt to Longarm as if he were running through a sea of quicksand. His legs were made of stone and he had no wind. Staggering into their camp, Longarm reached the horse with the rifle scabbard and tore the Winchester free. He levered in a shell and fired with Oakley halfway out of the water. His bullet struck the outlaw in the chest and knocked him back into the river. Feebly, with blood spilling from his lips, Oakley made a final attempt to kill Longarm, but coughed his last bullet up at the rising sun. Then the man sank into the river and his body disappeared. Longarm stood beside the water and watched until he saw Ford Oakley’s body bob to the surface far downriver.

Oakley had dropped the money-filled saddlebags on the footpath before he’d jumped into the Humboldt in his desperate attempt to reach the camp first. Longarm retrieved the saddlebags, and he was very pleased when he opened them and saw that Oakley hadn’t been lying after all.

“Three thousand, nine hundred,” he announced after counting the money.

Satisfied with the way things had gone, Longarm tied the saddlebags to his saddle, then led his three horses down to where Oakley’s body had run aground in the shallows. It took every ounce of his strength to hoist the big man over a spare horse and tie him down so he wouldn’t slip off and spill into the brush.

“Custis!”

Longarm twisted around and was amazed to see none other than Molly Bean, Sophie Flanigan, and even Bert riding hard toward him. Close on their heels were four riders.

Nobody had to tell Longarm that his friends were being pursued by the last of Ford Oakley’s gang. Levering another shell into the breech of his Winchester, Longarm took a bead on the first rider, who was huge with a shock of wild red hair. Longarm squeezed the trigger and saw the giant slap his chest, then tumble into the sage.

Longarm shot the next man, who was equally large, before he could saw his horse around and retreat in the face of the deadly rifle fire. The last two got away and disappeared over a ridge.

Molly dismounted and threw her arms around Longarm’s neck, but only after making sure that Ford Oakley was finally dead.

“You’re my hero!” she cried, giving him a big hug and then a kiss.

Sophie grabbed a fistful of Oakley’s wet hair and twisted his ugly face up so that she could spit into it. “Good riddance to bad rubbish,” she hissed.

“Yes,” Molly agreed. “Custis, we knew you’d finally run out of patience and kill this big sonofabitch!”

“He was bound and determined not to go to prison,” Longarm said. “He just had to go out fighting.”

Sophie slipped her arm around Bert’s slender waist. “I guess this is as good a time as any to tell you that Bert and I are going to be married.”

Longarm stared at Bert. “You are?”

“Yeah,” he said sheepishly. “We’re returning to the Ruby Mountains to work my mine until the gold is all gone. After that, we’ll be rich enough to do nothing but travel the world for the rest of our lives. Marshal, you and Miss Molly are sure welcome to come along as our guests.”

Sophie looked up at Bert, her gaze adoring. “Now, I think a month or two would be more than generous, Bertsy!”

“Yes, sweetheart.”

Longarm shook his head and tried hard not to get sick.

“Darling,” Molly said, slipping her arm around Longarm’s waist. “Elko is just a little ways off and that eastbound train won’t be along for two days. You look like you could use some tender care and good lovin’.”

“I could,” he agreed, his spirits immediately lifting.

She kissed his mouth and pressed her body close. Longarm wrapped her up in his arms and thought maybe he would miss the first … well, maybe even the second train through to Cheyenne.