Choking. Someone trying to hold back the sound. Someone not inside the tack room where Longarm and the stagecoach crew would be sleeping, but inside the barn itself.
Somebody waiting in there who didn’t want to make any noise that would announce his presence.
Longarm’s senses were instantly alert, his easygoing lassitude discarded so completely it might never have existed.
He tried to remember. He’d glanced inside the barn earlier in the afternoon, but only briefly. He hadn’t given any particular thought to it, merely wanting to know where it was he would be bedding down for the night.
Now he wished he’d paid more attention.
He let the partially smoked cigar drop unheeded into the soft snow at his feet, and gave a moment of thankful thought to the presence of the snow. Being so soft and deep, it acted like a thick layer of sawdust that would have to completely muffle the sounds of footsteps.
He had to assume that whoever was inside the barn knew he-or someone-was outside. Hell, he’d been obvious enough about it, announcing his presence with the smoke from his cigar that would be all too easily smelled by anyone who was even halfway alert. And an ambusher damn sure has his senses tuned to as high a pitch as he can reach.
The guy should know that Longarm was there, then. But with luck he wouldn’t be able to hear when Longarm slipped away.
Slowly, careful to make no sound in the soft, deadening snow, he eased away from the wall and moved to his left, turning to round the corner of the barn and head toward the back.
He slipped between the bars of the corral and approached the back door, left open so the mules could come inside to shelter or go out again as they pleased.
The snow inside the corral had been churned into a brown mush by the feet of the mules, and the ground was not completely hard beneath this slop. Longarm could still move in it quietly, but had to be careful lest he lose his footing on the slippery surface and take a tumble. That would be sure to warn the ambusher. And he dam sure did not want that.
He ducked under the neck of one mule and eased past the flank of another, then palmed his Colt and, bracing himself in case the ambusher happened to be looking down the center alleyway, stepped inside.
There was no gunfire. No sound of alarm. Nothing but the dull, plopping footfalls of a mule leaving the hayrack and passing Longarm on its way outdoors.
The presence of the mules was a blessing, he knew. Their movement would mask his and their sounds would already have made the ambusher insensitive to the happenings at the back end of the barn. That was all to the good.
What was not so good was that the ambusher’s vision would be thoroughly adjusted by now to the dark interior of the barn, while Longarm was still accustomed to the relatively bright outdoors with its starlight and the flare of lamps inside nearby windows reflecting brightly off the new-fallen snow.
Still, he was inside now and undetected.
He paused for a moment, waiting until another mule began to move about, then ghosted forward through the alley past closed stall doors.
A heavy gate blocked the front of the alley, containing the mules in the back two thirds of the barn area while the front third held the tack room and large work area where animals could be harnessed, doctored, groomed, whatever they required.
The ambusher was somewhere in that front third of the building, probably still close beside the wall to the left of the big double doors. At least that was where he’d been when Longarm had heard him swallow back that impulse to cough.
Longarm crouched in the straw that had been cast over the barn floor and, revolver at the ready, closed his eyes in an effort to speed the adjustment of his night vision.
Somewhere ahead he heard another faint choking sound, and then another. A man oughtn’t to set himself up in ambush if he’s got a cold, Longarm thought. Not, that is, that he wanted this particular ambusher to get any better at his stealthy trade. Longarm was glad enough to take advantage of whatever mistakes the bastard wanted to make.
He heard a slight shuffling of feet on hard earth. Then the ambusher moved and Longarm could at least see where he was.
He’d come back against the wall of the forward-most stall, the one across the alley to Longarm’s right.
Getting in position to open up with a shotgun as soon as Longarm opened the doors to come in to bed? That’s the way Longarm would have planned it if their situations had been reversed.
Get back away from the door and to the side away from the tack room so the victim’s attention would be aimed in that other direction. Then open up as soon as those doors swung apart.
A load of single-aught buckshot in the belly will damn near chop a man in two. Do it like that and you never have to worry about return fire, for there sure as hell won’t be any.
But that was only if the guy got his shot off.
Longarm knew he couldn’t trust opening the alley gate, nor the stall door either. He would have liked to get behind the ambusher at close range so he could take him by surprise. And take him alive.
The thing was, Longarm had no enemies here that he knew about. And if someone was gunning for him he’d like to find out the who and the why of it. That would best be done if he could take the guy alive.
He’d do that if he could.
What he needed now was patience. Take his time and stay right where he was. Let the guy get bored and come to him. All the ambusher had to do was move ten, twelve feet to his left and Longarm could reach across the gate and snake an arm around the guy’s throat from behind. Nice, silent, and safe. No problem at all.
The ambusher choked again.
Choke, Longarm found himself thinking. He couldn’t himself tell why he insisted on thinking of it as the ambusher choking. Not coughing but choking. Yet not quite that either. That was puzzling. But not so much so that he was going to waste any time worrying about it.
All he had to do now was be patient.
Eventually the guy was bound to wonder what had become of the person who’d stood outside smoking a cigar a little while ago.
Or even if the guy was so insensitive to what was around him that he’d somehow missed smelling that smoke, surely he would become restless sooner or later and move the few feet Longarm needed in order to reach him and wrap him up without anybody dying.
Surely he …
Longarm felt a cold emptiness in his belly. He could hear voices outside. Coming this way. George and Jesse. He recognized the sounds of their voices. They were coming in to go to bed.
In another few seconds one of them would grab hold of the barn doors and pull them open. And one, maybe both of those men would likely die.
Even if Longarm was the target, the ambusher would be too keyed up to hold back.
As soon as those doors opened, dammit, somebody was likely to die.
Longarm had no choice. Not if he wanted to keep two innocent men from being cut down.
Without pausing to think about the danger to himself, he bounded to his feet and, taking two long strides to build speed as he crossed the alleyway, launched himself over the gate at the dark, shadowy figure of the ambusher.
Chapter 10
Noise. There was no way to cover that much distance in a rush without making noise. No way to do it without warning the sonuvabitch what was happening.
And it takes but an instant to turn and yank a trigger. Longarm’s only chance was to startle the bastard so much that it would immobilize him. A moment was all that he needed.
But that moment of stunned hesitation he absolutely had to have.
As he threw himself over the gate he let out a roar. A deep, bone-chilling howl that started in his belly and ripped out of his throat.
He wanted—needed—the shock and the surprise of the attack to freeze the ambusher. Otherwise …
He saw the dim form turn and raise one arm as if to ward off Longarm’s charge. Or perhaps to raise a weapon.