“We always figured there had t’ be some reason. Nice t’ know what it is at long last.”
“Henry can arrange for your expense vouchers, Longarm. Do I need to mention that the quicker you handle this one the better it will be for everyone?”
“Believe me, Billy, the quicker I can get in there and hurry the hell back out the happier I’ll be too. I don’t wanta set myself up as a target any longer’n I have to.”
“And do watch your backside, Longarm. The paperwork is just murder when a federal employee dies on the job. I haven’t got time for it.”
“Your concern is touching, Boss.”
Billy winked at him and bent over the thick, messy piles of papers on his desk again. Longarm got up and retrieved the signed writ Billy had pushed over to the edge of the desk. He headed for the doorway. He was halfway through it when Billy coughed and in a soft, serious voice said, “Take care, Custis.” Longarm paused, nodded, and pulled the door closed behind him.
There was, in truth, no really good way to get from Denver to Snowshoe. At least none that Custis Long knew of. And while he had never been to that exact mining camp, he had certainly been to others just like it in the same neighborhood. There just wasn’t any direct rail connection, not yet, although the railroads were building as hard and fast as track could be laid from one place to another.
Longarm went into a huddle with Henry about the various possibilities, then collected a fistful of expense vouchers.
“Better take some travel vouchers too,” Henry advised. “Some of those new little rail and coach lines won’t accept a badge as a pass.”
“The lines that don’t have mail contracts, I take it?” Henry grinned. “Don’t have and probably won’t have.” ‘i’ll take some travel slips too then, if you please.”
“I can have everything ready for you in forty-five minutes, Longarm.”
“While you’re doing that, I’ll go lay in a supply of smokes. Man never knows what he’ll run into in those mining camps. Might be champagne and oysters hauled in fresh in barrels of ice one place, or the cheapest alcohol and tobacco-juice rotgut in the next.”
“And if 1 know you, Longarm, you'd rather the rotgut than the champagne.”
Long gave Billy Vail’s clerk a look of wounded innocence. “Please.”
“Sorry. Now go on and buy your emergency supplies. I have work to do to get you ready.”
“I’ll be back in a half hour.”
“Fine, but if you pester me I’ll give your home address to Miss May weather.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Calling my bluff are you, Longarm?”
“I’ll see you in an hour, Henry. Not a minute sooner.”
Henry chuckled as Longarm scuttled out into the hallway on the double-quick.
The stagecoach jolted to a stop, the passengers rocking back and forth with the motion as the heavy wagon body bounced and twisted on the leather straps that were all it had in the way of springs.
“Whoa, dammit, whoa.” The driver’s voice reached in through the open window. A horse stamped a foot and there was the sound of bit chains rattling.
Longarm yawned and sat upright on the thinly upholstered coach seat.
“Are we there? Is this Telluride?” a querulous voice whined.
“Not yet,” Longarm said patiently. “This oughta be Silver Creek.”
The man who’d asked the question gave him a look like it was Longarm’s fault the coach hadn’t yet reached Telluride. Longarm was not going to be greatly disappointed to be parting company from this traveler. The salesman was going on to Telluride by coach, while Longarm would be transferring to a newly completed rail line here for the rest of the trip into Snowshoe. Thank goodness.
“Nice meetin’ you,” Longarm lied politely as he opened the coach door and dropped down to ground level without waiting for the wood steps to be set in place.
A boy dragged the steps up and put them beside the open door so the other passengers could disembark if they wished. There had been eleven men in the coach on this run. Not bad, everything considered. The Studebaker would
accommodate an even dozen inside, plus there was room for more on the roof if necessary.
Longarm lighted a cheroot and waited patiently for the helper to get around to unloading luggage from the boot on the back of the coach and from the rack up top. Longarm’s bag and saddle were in the roof rack and likely would be among the last things off. He really hadn’t needed to be in any hurry to leave the coach. He yawned again and watched the men—pity there hadn’t been any women traveling the route this trip—climb stiffly down to the ground. They’d all been cooped up inside the coach for the past four hours, ever since the last change of horses.
“ ... talked ’er down t’ forty cents,” one of the men was saying to his traveling companion, “but at that she got the best o’ me ’cause she had the clap.”
Longarm looked off down the street. Not that there was so very much to see in Silver Creek. The mining camp was raw and ugly, but busy with almost frantic activity as men rushed to claw as much treasure from the earth as they could before the next man beat them to it.
Mining claims only protected a man so far because if two outfits claimed different outcroppings of the same vein, the one who dug the quickest was the one who would be allowed to dig the most. Once they met somewhere underground they would both be out of business and looking for a fresh strike.
The half-finished stores, many of them still with canvas tenting material for roofs, were doing a booming trade, and freight rigs rumbled up and down the wide main street like a horde of gigantic scurrying ants.
About the only businesses that were not rushed at this time of day were the honky-tonks and the saloons. Those would not hit their stride until nightfall when the miners came off shift.
Longarm had never been to Silver Creek before. He hadn’t needed to. Hell, he already knew the town well. This one and all the others just like it.
“Hey, you! This stuff belong t’ you, mister?”
He turned. The stagecoach helper was holding Longarm’s gear aloft.
“Yeah, that’s mine.”
“Take it now, mister, or buy it a ticket to Telluride, it don’t make no difference t’ me which.”
“Then I expect I’ll take it, thank you.”
The boy tossed the bag first, then the saddle with Longarm’s scabbarded Winchester attached.
The other coach passengers had already dispersed, the ones who were staying in Silver Creek straggling off in the direction of a hotel in the next block, the men unlucky enough to suffer more jostling throughout the night as the coach went on bolting for the nearest saloon.
Longarm decided against joining either party. What he needed was the terminus of the Silver Creek, Tipson, and Glory Narrow Gauge Rail Road. He had no idea when the next train would be scheduled out, but he intended to be on it. He flipped the butt of his cheroot into the street, shouldered his saddle, and picked up his bag.
Now all he needed was for someone to point the way.
“Say whatl" Longarm barked.
“Hey now, mister, it ain’t my fault,” the man snapped right back at him.
“But I was told—”
“Yeah, yeah, everybody was told. So now I’m telling you. The railroad ain’t here. Yet, that is. Just a temporary little setback, see. It’ll get built direc’ly. Just you wait an’ see that it will.”