“Damn right I’ll tell him. I’ll put him in iron as quick as Berman if that’s what it takes, Billy. You should know that right up front. If that sonuvabitch Berman resists he’ll get a .44 in his teeth as a persuader. And if Dillmore wants to take sides it’s his tough luck.”
“Do whatever you have to, Long. If there is any heat from the territorial authorities in Cheyenne, the United States attorney here is prepared to back you up. We’ve already discussed that. Which is not to say that you are being given license to run wild, Custis. But you do whatever is necessary. We’ll stand behind you.”
“All right, Boss. Thanks.”
The office door opened and Henry came in without waiting to be invited. He was in shirtsleeves and his hair was wet from melting snow. His cheeks were flushed a bright, blotchy red from the cold outdoors.
“Do you have it?” Vail asked.
“Right here.” Henry flashed an envelope.
“A newly signed federal warrant authorizing the arrest of one Cyrus Berman,” Billy explained to Longarm. “We don’t want to give some lawyer a jurisdictional loophole, so Henry tracked down Judge Franklin and got him to issue the warrant for you to serve. The latest one outstanding was issued almost a year ago in Arkansas, and all we have on it is the process order. I wanted you to have an original in hand just to make sure this Dillmore person or some paidoff local justice of the peace can’t balk at the service.”
“And I’ve already worked out your itinerary for travel, Longarm,” Henry volunteered. “You take the six-fifteen northbound this evening, connect with the Union Pacific tonight, and catch a late westbound to Bitter Creek, Wyoming. From there you take a feeder stagecoach line. Something called the Wind River Route, whatever that is. It will take you north to Ross County. Don’t worry about a ticket. The coach line is a contract mail carrier so they’ll honor your badge as a travel pass. As for Talking Water itself”—Henry frowned—“I can’t help you there. It isn’t on any of the maps I could find here. Still, it has a telegraph line, so it can’t be too hard to locate once you get close to it.”
“I’ll find it.”
“I really am sorry about disrupting your weekend,” Billy Vail said.
“I didn’t mind. Wouldn’t have anyway if I’d known it was Berman you had in mind. Besides, far as I know, I’m the only one this side o’ Omaha that’s ever actually seen the son of a bitch. An’ Billy. I wouldn’t take a chance on that bastard gettin’ away. Not for anything.”
“I know, Longarm. Good luck.”
Even Henry took the unusual step of reaching out to give Longarm a handshake for luck before handing over the warrant and the expense vouchers Longarm would need.
“Alive or dead, Boss, I’ll bring that sonuvabitch in if he’s anywhere within a hundred miles o’ Talking Water, Wyoming.”
Chapter 3
The conductor said it was snowing to beat hell over in the Laramie Mountains, but you couldn’t prove it by Longarm. Beyond the oil lamps in the smoking car all he could see was cold emptiness. The U.P. westbound was delayed an hour at Bosler waiting for a snowplow to clear the tracks ahead, but after that it was fast and easy rolling, so open and empty that they were within a quarter hour of the schedule by the time they squealed and rattled to a stop at Bitter Creek in western Wyoming Territory.
Daybreak had come by then, revealing a bleak expanse of grays and browns relieved only occasionally by long windrows of drifted snow. The ground for the most part was bare here, swept clean by the constant winds that also served to evaporate the snow.
This was the South Pass country, the truly high plains where the spine of the great Rocky Mountain chain lay buried beneath a plateau so vast the eye could not detect the altitude. It was called, and indeed appeared to be, a basin. But only because it was ringed on all sides by jagged spires and peaks of mountaintops so tall they carried their snow nearly the full year around.
From horseback, though, or the seat of a passenger coach, this “basin” seemed little different from most rangeland, covered with short grasses and gray sage. Close inspection showed the grasses to be even shorter than normal, however, their stems and foliage smaller and more delicate than the curly buffalo grasses found on the other side of the Bighorns. Longarm had heard a botanist, a man attached to a government survey party, claim that the grass here was some alpine variety with a three-dollar name that the scientist said was Latin, the alpine part meaning that it was supposed to grow only at serious mountain heights. Longarm didn’t know about that. Maybe the botanist was right. What Longarm was sure of was that this grass, sparse though it might be, gave plenty of good feeding to whatever livestock or wildlife grazed on it.
Longarm toted his saddle and carpetbag off the rail car and waved away the services of a boy in his teens who offered to carry them for him.
“Tell you what you can do for me t’ earn yourself a nickel, son.”
“Yes, sir?”
“There’s s’posed t’ be a stage outfit in town that has a connection north to Ross County.”
“Yes, sir, that’d be Sam Jones’s Wind River Line.”
“I reckon it’d be worth a nickel to me if you’d lead me to Mr. Jones’s stage depot.”
“You mean that, mister? For certain sure?”
“I said it, son. I meant it.”
“You sure you won’t back out on me now?”
Longarm cocked his head to one side and gave the kid a close looking over. The boy was grinning. After a few seconds Longarm commenced to grin too. “Don’t tell me. We’re standing slap beside the place, aren’t we?”
“Pret’ near,” the boy agreed gleefully. “It’s the building yonder, right beside the railroad depot here. You woulda seen the sign for yourself if we wasn’t standing back here on the platform like this.”
Longarm laughed. And reached into his pocket.
“You don’t have to do that, mister. I was just having fun with you.”
“No harm in that, son. No harm in a man keeping his word neither. I made you a promise and I don’t begrudge the nickel.” He grinned. “And anyways, the fun was worth that much for the price of admission.” He handed the boy his pay, and the kid was bright enough not to refuse it a second time.
Longarm checked in with the stage office and learned the next coach north would leave at noon, weather permitting.
“Twenty hours going north. Some less than that coming back since a lot of the upbound is spent climbing. Easier run coming back, you see. Fare is two dollars and a quarter to Soda Creek, four dollars if you’re going to-“
“Whoa. How’s about this for my fare.” Longarm opened his wallet and displayed his badge.
“I see you got your ticket already, Marshal.”
“Just a deputy,” Longarm corrected with a smile. “The marshal gets to sit behind a desk in a nice warm office while us deputies go out in the cold till our ears fall off.”
“Yes, sir, there’s nothing like some nice paperwork and a desk to sit at. You must envy that marshal of yours something fierce.”
“Your point is well taken, friend. And I thank you for the reminder.”
“You got some time to kill before the coach leaves, Deputy. And you look like too sensible a fellow to have bought any of the pasteboard those butcher boys on the train try to pass off for sandwiches. I know a homey little cafe practically across the street. Warm too, and the best pies and coffee this side of paradise. You can leave your things behind the gate here if you want to go stoke up. I won’t let anybody bother them.”
“You’re mighty kind, friend, and I’ll take you up on both offers, the bags and directions to that cafe.”
The stage agent smiled. “It’s my wife that runs the place, and if it’s no trouble, before you leave I’d appreciate you asking her to fetch me over a wedge of her peach pie to go with my coffee.”